Democrats should not fear running a woman — heck, they should run two

Hillary Clinton’s claim that she lost the 2016 presidential election in large part because of sexism doesn’t hold up. It’s true she faced sexism, including double standards in the media. But in the key swing states where Clinton lost — Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin — women have been overperforming for years. Voters in these states have voted for women disproportionately relative to male candidates. They aren’t opposed to electing women. They just didn’t elect Clinton.

In blue states that Clinton won, and now Democrats fear are fading to purple, including Minnesota, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico, women continue to win statewide disproportionately relative to male candidates.

Meanwhile, abortion stands to remain a central topic in 2024. It proved to be “the Issue” of the 2022 midterm elections, and was a key factor in Democratic victories that year. KFF found that in competitive states in 2022, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, “more than one-third of voters said the Supreme Court overturning Roe had a ‘major impact’ on their decision about whether to vote.”

In Pennsylvania, the decision was the most important factor even for about 1 in 10 Republican voters, the foundation found, and 21 percent of these people voted for the Democratic candidate for Senate.

These are small margins, but the 2024 presidential race will be decided by small margins.

Trump has internalized this lesson. He has attempted to move the conversation as far away from abortion as he can. He got his party to soften the language of its official platform. During his convention speech this month, he declined to brag about appointing justices to the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade. His staunchly pro-life vice-presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance (Ohio), didn’t say the A-word once in his address to the Republican convention.

While men can certainly run on abortion, and many more of them have done so this year than before, a female presidential candidate sends a clear message about the difference between the parties. Two women would hammer it home.

There are different schools of thought on how to pick a VP. In 2016, Trump went for balance, tapping Mike Pence, an experienced politician who appealed to social conservatives. Barack Obama did the same in 2008, bringing on board an old, White Senate hand in Joe Biden.

In 1992, Bill Clinton did the opposite, running with Al Gore, a fellow young, New South moderate Democrat. Clinton wanted to signal that his presidency would mark the start of a new generation of leadership.

If Harris becomes the nominee, she should follow the Clinton model. Picking a “safe” White man wouldn’t suggest a break from the past; selecting another woman would.

None of this is to say that sexism doesn’t exist in America. It does. So much so that if Harris runs with a woman, she would avoid the uncomfortable reality that a man serving under a woman is still more awkward and mockable than a woman doing the same.

Two women on the ticket wouldn’t win over the voters whom the blue team simply can’t win. A die-hard Trump supporter is going to vote for Trump no matter what. And a voter who wouldn’t vote for two women probably wouldn’t vote for one woman either. But these are not reasons to overlook some strong possible female contenders.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, 52, has been a favorite to join Harris. She’s popular in her home state, which Democrats can’t afford to lose. And early polling shows her running ahead of Trump as the hypothetical presidential nominee. Whitmer announced Monday she won’t throw her hat in the ring for VP, though politicians have certainly changed their minds before on whether to run. In any case, she is not the only woman to consider.

In Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs, 54, defeated Trump-aligned Kari Lake in 2022 in an election centered on abortion and election integrity. Hobbs won the support of even some state Republicans, and Liz Cheney’s PAC ran ads against Lake. Hobbs has proved she can carry the center, a valuable asset in a year when Democrats are vying for moderates and independents.

Gov. Michelle Lujan, 64, ran a similar race in New Mexico two years ago. She focused on abortion rights and the stakes for democracy in a race against Trump-endorsed Republican Mark Ronchetti. Lujan also ran on her record of passing a big tax cut, which made her appealing to moderates as well.

A less-discussed potential candidate is Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 64. Her popularity relative to the political makeup of Minnesota is astonishing. Plus, she’s consistently ranked one of the most bipartisan members of the Senate.

Laura Kelly, 74, is the governor of deep-red Kansas. Kelly would be the oldest of the bunch, but she does have a track record of performing well with younger and diverse voters. And she ran for reelection in 2022, when voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have made abortion illegal in the state.

Women are winning races more than they should — relative to the number of male candidates — in other purple-ish states, too, including Nevada and New Hampshire, where both U.S. senators are women, and in Maine, which has a female governor.

What makes many voters wary of female candidates is not their own views but their assumption that other voters would not like them. As Stanford researchers discovered in 2022, sexism is about perception. When voters are presented with evidence showing that female political candidates garner just as much support as men in U.S. general elections, the researchers said, “voters’ intentions to support women presidential candidates increased by about 3 percentage points.”

In other words, the best way to let voters know it’s okay to vote for women is to say so. And the best way to say it is to fill the ticket with them.