Always Running: Candidate Emergence among Women of Color over Time

• Published date: 01 June 2019
• Author: Andrea Silva,Carrie Skulley
• Date: 01 June 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912918789289
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912918789289

Political Research Quarterly

2019, Vol. 72(2) 342 –359

© 2018 University of Utah

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1065912918789289

journals.sagepub.com/home/prq

Article

The 2016 election saw a record number women (re)

elected to the U.S. Congress, but these rates were still

below parity.1 Women consistently report fewer instances

of recruitment and encouragement to run compared with

men, and women consider running for office less fre-

quently than men (Barreto et al. 2017). However, these

trends represent the aggregate experiences of all women

and vary when disaggregated by race and gender. For

example, black women report higher rates of encourage-

ment, and black women and Latinas more frequently

consider a running relative to white or Asian women

(Barreto et al. 2017). These differences are regularly

eschewed in favor of discussion of women’s political

emergence and experiences in the aggregate. As a result,

much of what we do know about women’s decisions to

run focuses explicitly on gender without the impact of its

interaction with race. How does intersectionality condi-

tion women’s emergence as candidates for the U.S.

Congress? We find many conditions thought necessary

for women’s emergence as candidates are contextual and

temporally specific. Moreover, conditions that encour-

age women to run in the aggregate do not necessarily

apply for women of color.

In this paper, we add to a growing body of work on

candidate emergence focusing on intersectionality. The

gender and politics literature has been critiqued for focus-

ing on the experiences of all women to the exclusion of

women of color (e.g., Paxton, Kunovich, and Hughes

2007; Smooth 2006) and frequently justified as a data

limitation problem (but see Brown and Gershon 2017).

Using a novel dataset of U.S. Congressional primary

elections from 1980 through 2012, we overcome this

limitation by using a cross-sectional time series (CSTS)

analysis. We find many influences on women’s emer-

gence are conditional by race/ethnicity. Our results sug-

gest examining the intersection of race and gender is

essential and that data availability need not be a prohi-

bitive factor in explaining the nuanced experiences of

women candidates.

The Merits of Diversity in

Government

Women’s representation in Congress is not proportional to

the population, and scholarly debates question whether

this disparity is a problem for representation. These sub-

stantive and descriptive representation discussions focus

789289PRQXXX10.1177/1065912918789289Political Research QuarterlySilva and Skulley

research-article2018

1University of North Texas, Denton, USA

2Sewanee: The University of the South, TN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Andrea Silva, Political Science Department, University of North

Texas, 1155 Union Circle, Denton, TX 76203, USA.

Email: andrea.silva@unt.edu

Always Running: Candidate Emergence

among Women of Color over Time

Andrea Silva1 and Carrie Skulley2

Abstract

The number of women seeking congressional office in the United States has dramatically increased since 1980. Previous

research on women candidates explores why women run, but new research on candidate emergence shows that

women face different challenges and advantages based on their race and ethnicity. We investigate these differences

by disaggregating data on women’s candidate emergence by race and ethnicity to examine how these theories work

when explicitly considering race and ethnicity. We focus our examination on women running in House primaries

between 1980 and 2012. We argue that theories of candidate emergence are conditional to the racial and/or ethnic

identification of the candidate. We employ a cross-sectional time series analysis with the intuition that examining

congressional elections over time will allow us to make general comments about the participation of women in

congressional elections. We find that many of the conditions thought necessary for women’s emergence as candidates

are contextual and temporally specific. Moreover, conditions that encourage women to run do not necessarily apply

to women of color.

Keywords

gender, racial and ethnic politics, candidate emergence, intersectionality, candidate quality, primary elections

Silva and Skulley 343

on policy outputs and psychological and community ben-

efits. Arguments supporting substantive representation

suggest that representation is more than “mirroring” con-

stituents, and assuming legislative actions are driven by

characteristics is dangerous (e.g., Dovi 2002; Pitkin 1967,

61). Supporters of descriptive representation argue the sym-

bolism of traditionally marginalized groups as elected lead-

ers challenge notions of government exclusion, increasing

the social and political capital of historically marginalized

groups (Mansbridge 1999; Phillips 1995). Descriptively

represented groups have increased rates of participation

(Gay 2001), increased political efficacy (Atkeson and

Carrillo 2007; Banducci, Donovan, and Karp 2004;

Banducci and Karp 2005), increased political knowledge

(Verba, Burns, and Schlozman 1997), and engagement

(Stokes-Brown and Dolan 2010). Descriptively repre-

sented groups feel higher levels of trust in government

(Howell and Fagan 1988) and are less likely to feel alien-

ated by government (Bobo and Gilliam 1990; Pantoja and

Segura 2003).

Women, in particular, are less likely to perceive poli-

tics as a “man’s game” when represented by women, and

female representation increases political discussions

among women and girls (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006;

Carroll and Strimling 1983; Sapiro 1981). When women

see other women run and win, it implies that women can

participate in decision making and influence policy (Karp

and Banducci 2008; Lawless 2004). Women’s percep-

tions of government are more favorable when other

women hold visible positions of power (Mansbridge

1999), and women are more likely to assess their female

Congressional representatives positively (Jones 2014;

Lawless 2004).

Finally, women’s descriptive representation leads to

substantive policy representation. Practically, the pres-

ence of women on the ballot or in office increases the

likelihood that women’s issues will be incorporated

into campaigns and policy agendas (Banducci and Karp

2000; Sapiro and Conover 1997; Swers 2002, 2005;

Wolbrecht 2002) and frame policy discussions from

women’s perspective (Sanbonmatsu, Carroll, and Walsh

2009). Women legislators also outperform male coun-

terparts. They sponsor and cosponsor more bills and

channel more funds to their districts than men even

after controlling for electoral vulnerability, ideology,

partisanship, and committee assignments (Anzia and

Berry 2011).

Despite theoretical disagreements on descriptive ver-

sus substantive representation, decades of work have

documented the psychological, community, and policy

benefits of inclusivity and diversity in Congress. Our

work builds on investigations looking at one dimension

of marginalization to multiply marginalized communities

(e.g., women of color).

Intersectionality and Political

Engagement

The importance of descriptive representation for women’s

political engagement is echoed in studies focusing on

communities of color (e.g., Casellas 2011; Fraga et al.

2006; Fraga et al. 2008; Fraga et al. 2003). What remains

less clear is whether/how these benefits accrue for women

of color as candidates. The early candidate emergence lit-

erature has been critiqued for ignoring the power relations

already rooted in social identities (Allen 2013; Brown

2014b; Brown and Gershon 2017; Collins 2002; Dolan

2008; Holman and Schneider 2018). Intersectionality is

the idea that the multiple identities and situations shape

experiences in a mutually constitutive way and is central

to our investigation (Crenshaw 1991). We know the inter-

section of race and gender shapes the policy preferences

and approaches to participation of women of color

(Hardy-Fanta 1993). For example, women of color have

stronger linked fate and are more likely than white women

to participate in grass roots movements and activism

(Pardo 1998; Sanchez 2006).

Work that focuses primarily on women’s candidate

emergence and intersectionality is nuanced and complex.

Women of color differ from white women in the reasons

they decide to run, the type of campaign they lead, the

kind of support they should or do receive, and ultimately

how they legislate (Bejarano 2013; Brown 2014a; Holman

and Schneider 2018; Minta and Brown 2014; Philpot and

Walton 2007; Sanbonmatsu 2015; Scola 2006; Garcia-

Bedolla, Tate, and Wong 2014). We build on these investi-

gations by including proxies for these important candidate

emergence factors into a larger model. We compare these

theories intersectionally, and across time and context.

Determinants of Candidate

Emergence and Hypotheses

After mounting evidence has shown women candidates do

not systematically suffer from voter bias (e.g., Herrnson,

Lay, and Stokes 2003; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a,

1993b; R. Seltzer, Newman, and Leighton 1997), analyses

of women’s underrepresentation have investigated the

conditions under which women decide to run (e.g.,

Lawless and Fox 2010; Norris and Lovenduski 1995).

Studies accounting for intersectionality have found that the

increased educational attainment, income, and wealth has

increased the numbers of black women in candidate eligi-

bility pools. Brown (2014a) echoes this, finding black

women legislators in Maryland came from working or

middle-class backgrounds. The extent of black women’s

political ambition, participation, and success in electoral

politics is mitigated by social and political marginalization,

and substantively affects how candidates are identified,