Mexican politics broke the glass ceiling. Our politics are just broken.

President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum speaks to a crowd after initial results showed she was leading the polls by a wide margin on Monday, June 3, 2024, in Mexico City. (Photo by Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images)

Last Sunday, Mexican voters went to the polls to choose their next president. Claudia Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, soundly defeated opposition candidate, Xóchitl Gálvez, and minor party candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez. Heading into Election Day, the leading candidates in the polls were both women. Mexico elected the first woman president in their country’s history because both major party coalitions nominated a woman — something that has never happened in the United States. Five months ahead of the United States’ presidential election, the presumptive nominees of both major parties are men.

Polls consistently show that most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump, who was convicted late last month on 34 felony counts in his hush money trial. These men are our presumptive nominees in part because there was never much of a choice or opportunity for anyone else to lead. Despite poor polling numbers and calls for him to step down, Biden was never seriously challenged. As a quasi-incumbent, former President Trump is the last former president since Grover Cleveland to win his party’s nomination after losing the presidency.

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley became the first woman to ever win a Republican primary and recently made local news by winning 22% in last month’s Indiana primary, even though she dropped out of the race more than two months prior. Given voters’ discontent, are Americans primed to elect a woman candidate in the near future?

In our recently published research paper, we discuss results from our 2021 study of American voters’ support for a woman president by assessing their attitudes and predicted behaviors. Using an original survey instrument, we asked more than 1,000 Americans whether electing the country’s first woman president would be historically important.

In the abstract, almost three of every four Americans affirmed that this would be historically important, although we did find some notable statistically significant differences between voters. In general, we found that self-identified women, Democrats, political liberals, and those who held more equitable views toward women in politics were more likely to believe this to be historically important.

While these findings may be encouraging, politics does not happen in the abstract. It is a costless endeavor to say you would consider supporting a woman candidate for president. When push comes to shove, recent history suggests that most Americans are not willing to follow through.

To examine whether voters would support a woman candidate “when push comes to shove,” we asked the same respondents to rank their preferred candidates in a Democratic and Republican nomination contest using a list experiment. In our Republican control group, respondents received a standard list of Republican candidates: Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, and Tom Cotton. Our Republican experimental group viewed this same list, but there was one additional name: Nikki Haley. In our Democratic control group, respondents received a standard list of Democratic candidates: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren. Our Democratic experimental group viewed the same list, plus one additional name: Pete Buttigieg.

Since respondents were randomly assigned to the control group or the experimental group, we were able to identify how the inclusion of another candidate impacted support for women candidates. Among Republicans, we found clear and consistent support for Donald Trump. The only Republican voters willing to support Haley were ones who prioritized electing the country’s first woman president, an extremely small subset of Republican voters.

Among Democrats, most respondents were bullish about their support for Biden. However, the inclusion of Pete Buttigieg reduced the level of support for all three women candidates, which suggests that Democrats may prefer a man over a woman when given the choice. However, there is one important caveat: women Democrats, a powerful voting bloc within the party, are one of the groups most likely to support a woman candidate.

The political science literature tells us that “when women run, they win,” but that requires parties to nominate women. While we will not elect a woman president this November, we are skeptical that both or either party nominates a woman in 2028.

Among Republican hopefuls, Haley hurt her standing among the MAGA-wing of the Republican Party by daring to remain in the race against Donald Trump, while prospective Vice Presidential candidate Kristi Noem hurt her future ambitions by admitting she killed her family dog in her recent book. Among Democrats, Vice President Kamala Harris is viewed unfavorably by most Americans. Regardless of who wins this November, both parties will have open nominations in 2028.

Braun nabs early win in the Republican primary for governor

In order to nominate a woman for president, we need to continue developing the political pipeline by electing more women to public office. While we hold reservations about whether this will occur in the next presidential election, we were encouraged by the 2022 gubernatorial results wherein more women were elected than ever before, and three were the first women to be elected governor in their state’s history.

Unfortunately, Indiana is not one of those states. In red states like Indiana, there is a history of women’s underrepresentation in public office; for example, less than 30% of our state legislature and statewide elective executives are women and a woman has never been elected governor. Given the chance to elect the state’s first woman governor, Republican primary voters overwhelmingly picked Mike Braun over Suzanne Crouch. Braun is favored to win against Democrat Jennifer McCormick in November.

Our previous research suggests that it is possible to elect a woman governor in a state like Indiana, especially if the electorate believes a woman has previously held this office, as many voters do. Thus, if states elect more women to public office, the pool of potential presidential candidates increases, and voters may have another opportunity to make history. We believe it is possible we might see a woman president in our lifetime, but there is still much to be done. While that candidate is unlikely to come from Indiana, getting more women to local and state offices is a step in the right direction.

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