副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯现在有望获得民主党总统候选人提名，她将成为美国第二位获得主要政党总统提名的女性，也是第一位有色人种女性。虽然自乔·拜登总统退出竞选以来，民主党人对哈里斯的提升基本上是顺利的，但共和党的早期反应表明，哈里斯的性别(和种族)可能是他们批评的核心。当然，性别被用来削弱女性参政的历史由来已久，但近年来，在规范女性在高层的成功方面取得了重大进展。考虑到这一点，哈里斯的竞选活动可以告诉我们这些类型的批评在多大程度上仍然有分量，以及它们在多大程度上可能适得其反。
“候选资格”陷阱
在过去的70年里，美国政界对女性的态度发生了很大的变化。1958年，只有54%的受访者表示，他们会投票选举一位合格的女性担任总统，根据盖洛普的调查。2024年1月，93%的人说了同样的话。民主党人的支持率更高;99%的民主党人和87%的共和党人表示他们会投票给女性。(无党派人士处于中间，为93%。)当然，盖洛普不会问男性总统候选人同样的问题。
美国政界对有色人种的态度也发生了变化。例如，1958年，只有38%的受访者表示他们会投票给黑人总统候选人，而2024年这一比例为92%。同样，民主党的支持率高于共和党(分别为96%和88%)。盖洛普并没有专门针对有色人种女性、亚裔候选人或白人候选人提出这个问题。(它最近开始询问“西班牙裔”候选人——93%的受访者表示他们将在2024年支持)。
总的来说，支持女性或黑人候选人相当一致自2000年左右以来，党派分裂仅限于这种假设，民主党人对支持女性和非白人候选人更加开放。但其他民调显示，民主党人对选举女总统尤其热情。皮尤2018年的一项民意调查发现63%的民主党人说，他们“个人希望美国能在有生之年选出一位女总统”，相比之下，只有24%的共和党人这样认为。根据一份新的美联社/NORC民意调查，大多数民主党人表示，选举一名女性或有色人种将是一件“好事”(分别为70%和61%)，而大多数共和党人表示无所谓(分别为68%和78%);15%的共和党人和几乎没有民主党人认为选举一位女总统是一件“坏事”。
当然，为了有机会投票给女性候选人或有色人种候选人，美国人必须通过党内初选来提名这些候选人。在2020年的初选中，希拉里·克林顿在2016年输给特朗普似乎在许多民主党人的脑海中挥之不去——研究表明性别歧视激发了选民在投票箱的选择，并对克林顿在2016年大选中的投票份额产生了负面影响。这可能有助于解释为什么尽管表达了对抽象女性或黑人候选人的支持，但2020年初选中民主党人似乎不愿提名具有其中一种(或两种)身份的人。虽然2019年YouGov/CBS新闻民意调查显示民主党人更喜欢女人或有色人种作为他们党的总统候选人，该党最终选择了“安全”选择拜登(伯尼·桑德斯是他最接近的竞争对手)。
这些统计数据表明，一些美国人可能不支持女性候选人或有色人种候选人，不是因为公开的性别歧视和种族主义，甚至是隐性偏见，而是因为对具有这些身份的候选人能否获胜的更复杂的担忧。这是一个被称为“战略歧视这解释了女性和有色人种在美国政治中的代表性不足，因为选民不愿意支持非白人和非男性候选人，因为他们担心其他选民会支持他们。对哈里斯的候选人资格特别值得注意的是,《联合报》发现，黑人女性被认为比白人女性或黑人男性更不容易当选，这表明独特挑战她作为一名候选人面临多重边缘化的身份。
另一项研究发现民主党人在2020年的初选中认为女性和有色人种不如白人男性“可当选”，尽管在假设的比赛中他们更经常是首选候选人。而在2019年，LeanIn.org的一项民意调查我发现，在民主党人中，58%的人表示，与男性候选人相比，女性要战胜特朗普至少会稍微困难一点。在同一项民意调查中，53%的人说他们非常或非常愿意接受一位女总统——这一数字与2004年的调查结果几乎相同YouGov/经济学人上个月的一项民意调查显示，16%的人认为“大多数美国人”已经非常或非常准备好了。
拜登选择哈里斯作为他的竞选伙伴的一个原因是努力迎合民主党人的需求，即代表一个日益多元化的政党。但是现在哈里斯自己选择了副总统—几乎所有浮出水面的名字是白人——很明显，候选人的问题仍然是一个关键因素。A7月19日至21日YouGov民意调查发现民主党人和倾向于民主党的独立人士仍然认为，与男性相比，该党成员不太可能支持女性竞选总统，特别是如果她的竞选伙伴也是女性的话。根据一份第19次新闻/调查猴子投票7月22日至24日，40%的受访者认为哈里斯有一个白人男性竞选伙伴将有更好的机会获胜，而42%的人认为选择女性将对她的竞选产生负面影响(只有16%的人认为这将产生积极影响)。
威尔·哈里斯压制性别化和种族化攻击?
政治对手长期以来一直利用选民对女人和有色人种在政治上，哈里斯作为一名多种族女性的身份不可避免地意味着选民对性别、种族及其交集的态度将在这次选举中发挥作用，无论这些态度是否被她的对手直接援引……但即使在她竞选的早期阶段，它们也是如此。重新发起他们的攻击在她担任副总统期间，共和党有称哈里斯为“DEI候选人”一个标签激起种族仇恨认为少数人的成功不是靠自己挣来的，甚至是以牺牲他人为代价的。其他保守派评论员认为哈里斯“她靠睡觉爬到了顶端，”一个比喻也反映了对从政女性的性别化刻板印象，尤其是有色人种的女性。
副总统候选人JD Vance对哈里斯长期从政的攻击“过去20年里，除了收政府支票，你还干过什么?”他在最近的一次集会上问道——唤起福利女王比喻，可追溯到20世纪70年代，妖魔化接受政府援助的单身女性(尤其是单身黑人女性)。万斯还用更直接的性别比喻攻击哈里斯2021年的翻新剪辑万斯质疑哈里斯的领导能力，称她(和其他民主党领导人)为“无子女的猫女士”，用这种语言质疑他们在国家未来的利益。(哈里斯是两个继子的母亲，其中一个在社交媒体上为她辩护反对漫画。)
尽管如此，仍有一些理由认为，种族化和性别化批评的有效性可能会在这一轮受到阻碍。首先，自2016年以来，在涉及种族主义和性别歧视的态度方面，存在明显的党派排序。研究表明，自80年代以来，美国白人对黑人的种族仇恨一直保持稳定，但是这些态度现在与政治信仰更加密切相关和党派偏见。类似地，关于职场女性越来越两极分化沿着党派路线。换句话说，这些信念在很大程度上已经融入了党派偏见，这意味着那些可能因为种族或性别而不支持哈里斯这样的候选人的人已经不太可能在第一时间投票给任何民主党人。
此外，自2016年以来，女性在美国政治中取得了相当大的进展。在2018年中期选举中，女性在民主党初选中的胜率为是男人的两倍在那个周期中，60%的国会席位被民主党人翻转是由女性赢得的。不仅仅是民主党女性如此:2020年，共和党女性同样占据了大多数国会席位他们的派对变了。当然，哈里斯在2020年当选为美国第一位女性副总统。这样的结果挑战了女性不可当选的观念。
事实上，在每一个选举周期中，女性候选人都有一些选举优势。特朗普当选后，历史性的妇女游行和日益壮大的#MeToo运动重新引起了人们对妇女问题的关注，这促使更多人关注妇女问题民主党女性竞选公职——可能帮助了民主党人动员年轻和女性选民。然后在2020年，共和党人采用了招募妇女的一致战略(和有色人种)加入他们的候选人阵营，因为共和党女性出于对特朗普当选引发的进步女性运动的不满，采取了保守的反击策略，认为这是对女性利益的歪曲——这种说法如果来自共和党男性，可能会不那么真诚。
而在谈到最高官职时，妮基·黑利做了一个令人信服的候选资格论证在这个周期的共和党初选中。“我的观点是，克林顿的2016年竞选活动在让女性总统候选人，甚至是总统正常化方面走了很长的路，”圣母大学(Notre Dame)研究美国政治中的性别和榜样效应的政治学家克里斯蒂娜·沃尔布莱希特(Christina Wolbrecht)说。“2020年，多名女性竞选民主党提名，其中几名被认为是可信的竞争对手，今年，妮基·黑利在共和党内比除川普之外的所有人都要长寿。当然，这些候选人是女性的事实并没有被忽视，但这似乎不像2016年那样成为报道的中心。”
自2022年多布斯决定以来，民主党人一直指望堕胎是一个获胜的问题，这将推动他们的选民投票，但同时拜登似乎正在失去部分支持哈里斯可能会将围绕堕胎权利的竞选重新聚焦到对她有利的地方。正如沃尔布莱希特所说，“谈论生育权对哈里斯来说比对拜登来说容易得多，所以我们可以预计这个问题对她的竞选活动来说比拜登更重要。”对哈里斯来说更是如此，因为女人被认为更擅长处理事情卫生保健和更一般的社会政策问题.
哈里斯也很可能是被认为更加自由比拜登更好因为她的性别——虽然这是大选的一个潜在陷阱，但这也可能让她有更多的空间，通过在某些问题上转向中间立场来发挥两面性，比如了解她作为检察官的背景以对抗倾向于纠缠民主党人和女性的“对犯罪手软”的攻击。(值得注意的是，对于有色人种女性来说，这条钢丝更窄，因为黑人妇女是处罚更多比白人女性使用“主导”语言。)
尽管如此，仅以性别为基础，哈里斯领先的民主党候选人与今年的共和党候选人形成了强烈对比。这共和党大会双倍下注在……上“硬汉”王牌角色考虑到万斯的情况，他选择的竞选伙伴也是如此强调男性受害者和性别传统主义的历史。事实上，特朗普的竞选到目前为止似乎支持旨在激励和吸引男性选民的战略，包括在有色人种中取得进展，即使这可能会疏远一些女性选民。特朗普代理众议员马特·盖兹在一月份坦率地提出了这个策略他说，“我们每失去一个凯伦，就有一个胡里奥和一个贾马尔准备报名参加MAGA运动。”一些著名的共和党人，包括政党领导人和黑利已经表达了对这些基于种族和性别的攻击路线的担忧，担心这种方法可能适得其反。
对于民主党人来说，反击这些攻击的明确特征是性别歧视者或者种族主义者也可能令人担忧，但哈里斯的竞选团队和代理人可能已经找到了一个更有效的反击手段，一个将性别攻击转向特朗普和万斯的手段:他们最近开始将共和党候选人描述为“命运，“特别是在性别语言和对妇女问题的立场方面。”这些家伙真奇怪。他们在竞选，就像“男人女人憎恨者俱乐部”之类的，”明尼苏达州州长蒂姆·沃尔兹说.
和特朗普和万斯上钩了，还用“怪异”来形容哈里斯在气候和移民问题上的立场。如同奥马尔·瓦索加州大学伯克利分校的政治学家说，“当你的对手处于有利位置时，经典的策略是将战斗转移到新的领域。因此，“他们很奇怪”不仅更容易理解，而且可能重新定义了“正常与不正常”的竞争“这样一来，性别化和种族化的批评就不那么重要了。
***
现在还为时过早，但民意调查无疑表明哈里斯是一个“可行的”候选人——她一直都是与特朗普不相上下的民调，与与拜登相似的支持率对他来说，一大卖点是他迎合了广泛的选民联盟，以及他击败特朗普的能力。无论哈里斯是否成为美国第一位女总统，她作为主要政党提名人的地位，以及她的对手已经引发的性别化和种族化攻击，都意味着这场竞选肯定会暴露美国对妇女、种族和政治的态度。
How will sexism impact Harris's presidential campaign?
With Vice President Kamala Harris now the expected Democratic nominee for president, she'll be the second woman, and first woman of color, to receive a major political party's nomination for president in the United States. And while Democrats' elevation of Harris since President Joe Biden's exit from the race has been largely smooth, the early reaction from the Republican Party suggests that Harris's gender (and race) may be central to their criticisms. There's certainly a history of gender being leveraged to undermine women in politics, but recent years have seen significant progress in normalizing women's success at high levels. With that in mind, Harris's campaign could tell us to what extent those types of criticisms still hold weight, and to what extent they could backfire.
The 'electability' trap
Attitudes about women in American politics have evolved a lot over the last 70 years. In 1958, just 54 percent of respondents said they would vote for a well-qualified woman to become president,according to Gallup. In January 2024, 93 percent said the same. That support is higher among Democrats; 99 percent of Democrats compared with 87 percent of Republicans said they would vote for a woman. (Independents fell in the middle, at 93 percent.) Of course, Gallup doesn't ask the same question about male presidential candidates.
Attitudes about people of color in American politics have evolved, too. For example, in 1958, just 38 percent of respondents said they would vote for a Black presidential candidate, compared with 92 percent in 2024. Again, Democratic support is higher than Republican (96 percent compared with 88 percent, respectively). Gallup doesn't ask this question specifically about women of color, Asian candidates, or white candidates. (It more recently began asking about "Hispanic" candidates — 93 percent of respondents said they would support in 2024).
Overall, support for a female or Black candidatehas been fairly consistentsince around 2000, and the partisan split is limited in this hypothetical, with Democrats modestly more open to supporting women and nonwhite candidates. But other polling shows Democrats are particularly enthusiastic about electing a female president.A 2018 poll by Pewfound 63 percent of Democrats said that they "personally hope the United States will elect a female president in their lifetime," compared to just 24 percent of Republicans. And according to anew AP/NORC poll, a majority of Democrats say electing a woman or person of color would be a "good thing" (70 percent and 61 percent, respectively), while the majority of Republicans say it doesn't matter (68 percent and 78 percent, respectively); 15 percent of Republicans and virtually no Democrats say it would be a "bad thing" to elect a female president.
Of course, to have the opportunity to vote for female candidates, or candidates of color, Americans have to nominate these candidates through party primaries. In the 2020 primaries, Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump in 2016 seemed to loom large in many Democrats' minds — studies have shown thatsexismmotivated voters' choice at the ballot box and negatively impacted Clinton's vote share in the 2016 general election. This probably helps explain why, despite expressed support for an abstract female or Black candidate, the 2020 primary saw Democrats seemingly balk at nominating someone with either (or both) identities. While a 2019 YouGov/CBS News poll showed Democrats preferred awoman or a person of coloras their party's presidential nominee, the party ultimately went with the"safe" pickin Biden (and Sen. Bernie Sanders was his closest rival).
These statistics point to the fact that some Americans may not support female candidates or candidates of color not because of overt sexism and racism or even implicit bias, but because of more complicated fears about whether candidates with these identities can win. This is a concept known as "strategic discrimination," which explains that women and people of color are underrepresented in U.S. politics because voters hesitate to support nonwhite, nonmale candidates based on concerns about whetherother voterswill support them. Of particular note for Harris's candidacy, the linked paper found Black women to be perceived as less electable than either white women or Black men, demonstrating theunique challengeshe faces as a candidate with multiple marginalized identities.
Another studyfound Democrats in the 2020 primary rated women and people of color as less "electable" than their white, male counterparts despite more often being the preferred candidate in a hypothetical matchup. And in 2019,a poll by LeanIn.orgfound that among Democrats, 58 percent said that it would be at least slightly harder for a woman to win against Trump as opposed to a male candidate. In that same poll, 53 percent said they were very or extremely ready for a woman president — a near-identical number to that in aYouGov/Economistpoll last month — but far fewer, 16 percent, thought "most Americans" were very or extremely ready.
One reason Biden selected Harris as his running mate was an effort to appeal to Democrats' demand for a ticket that represented an increasingly diverse party. But with Harris now making her own choice for VP —almost all of the names that have been floatedare white men — it's clear that electability concerns remain a key factor here. AJuly 19-21 YouGov pollfound Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents still think members of the party would be less likely to support a woman for president, compared to a man, especially if her running mate was also a woman. And according to a19th News/SurveyMonkey pollfielded July 22-24, 40 percent of respondents think Harris will have a better chance of winning with a white male running mate, while 42 percent think that choosing a woman would have a negative impact on her campaign (just 16 percent believe it would have a positive impact).
Will Harris neutralize gendered and racialized attacks?
Political opponents have long exploited voters' skepticism aboutwomenandpeople of colorin politics, and Harris's identity as a multiracial woman inevitably means voters' attitudes about gender, race and their intersection will come into play in this election, whether or not they are directly invoked by her opponents … But even at this early point in her candidacy, they are. Renewing an attack they've madethroughout her vice presidency, Republicans havecalled Harris a "DEI candidate,"a label thatstokes racial resentmentby suggesting that success by minority individuals is not earned, or even comes at the expense of others. Other conservative commentators have suggested that Harris "slept her way to the top," a trope that also reflectssexualized stereotypes about women in politics, especially women of color.
Vice presidential candidateJD Vance's attacks on Harris as a longtime politician— "What the hell have you done other than collect a government check for the last 20 years?" he asked at a rally recently — evoke theWelfare Queen trope, which dates back to the 1970s and demonizes single women (especially single Black women) who receive government assistance. And Vance has attacked Harris using more direct gendered tropes as well: In aresurfaced clip from 2021, Vance questions Harris's leadership capacity by referring to her (and other Democratic leaders) as "childless cat ladies," using this language to question their stake in the country's future. (Harris is a mother to two stepchildren, one of whomtook to social media to defend heragainst the caricature.)
Still, there is some reason to think that the effectiveness of racialized and gendered criticism could be stunted this cycle. For one, there's been a stark partisan sorting when it comes to attitudes that tap into racism and sexism since 2016. Research shows that racial resentment among white Americans toward Black Americans has remained stable since the '80s,but these attitudes are now more closely correlated with political beliefsand partisanship. Similarly, beliefs aboutwomen in the workplace are increasingly polarizedalong partisan lines. In other words, these beliefs are largely already baked into partisanship, meaning that those likely to be dissuaded from supporting a candidate like Harris based on her race or gender were already unlikely to vote for any Democrat in the first place.
Moreover, women have made considerable gains in American politics since 2016. In the 2018 midterms, women's win rate in Democratic primaries wasdouble that of men's, and 60 percent of the congressional seats flipped by Democrats in that cyclewere won by women. It's not just true of Democratic women, either: In 2020, Republican women were similarly responsible for most of the congressional seatstheir party flipped. And of course, Harris was elected as the country's first female vice president in 2020. Outcomes like these challenge the notion that women aren't electable.
In fact, in each of those election cycles, female candidates arguably had some electoral advantages. In the wake of Trump's election, the historic Women's March and the growing #MeToo movement brought renewed attention to women's issues, which prompted moreDemocratic women to run for office— and may have helped Democrats at large bymobilizing young and female voters. Then in 2020, Republicans adopted aconcerted strategy to recruit women(and people of color) to their candidate pool, as Republican women, motivated by resentment toward the progressive women's movement sparked by Trump's election, ran on a conservative counter-narrative to what they believed was a misrepresentation of women's interests — a pitch that would've been less sincere coming from GOP men.
And when it comes to the highest office, Nikki Haley made aconvincing electability argumentin this cycle's Republican primary. "My view is that Clinton's 2016 campaign went a long way toward normalizing a woman presidential candidate, and perhaps even a president," said Christina Wolbrecht, a political scientist at Notre Dame who studies gender and role model effects in American politics. "Multiple women ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, several of whom were considered credible competitors, and Nikki Haley outlasted everyone except Trump on the Republican side this year. Certainly the fact that these candidates were women did not go unremarked, but it did not seem to be as central to coverage as it had been in 2016."
Since the 2022 Dobbs decision, Democrats have banked on abortion as a winning issue that would drive their voters to the polls, but whileBiden appeared to be losing some of this support, Harris could refocus the race around abortion rights to her advantage. As Wolbrecht put it, "talking about reproductive rights comes much easier to Harris than it does to Biden, so we can expect that issue to be even more central to her campaign than it was to Biden's." This is all the more true for Harris because women are viewed as more adept at handlinghealth careandsocial policy issues more generally.
Harris is also likely beperceived as more liberalthan Biden would have beenbecause of her gender— and while that's a potential pitfall in a general election, it could also give her more room to play both sides by pivoting to the center on certain issues, such asleaning into her background as a prosecutorto counter the "soft on crime" attacks that tend to dog both Democrats and women. (Notably, that tightrope is narrower for a woman of color, asBlack womenarepenalized morethan white women for using "dominant" language.)
Still, a Democratic ticket with Harris at the top presents a strong contrast to this year's GOP ticket on the basis of gender alone. TheGOP convention doubled downon the"tough guy" Trump persona, as did his choice of running mate, given Vance'shistory of emphasizing male victimhood and gender traditionalism. In fact, Trump's campaign thus far has seemed to endorse a strategy meant to energize and attract male voters, including by making inroads among men of color, even if it could alienate some female voters. Trump surrogate Rep. Matt Gaetzlaid out this strategy bluntly in January, saying, "for every Karen we lose, there's a Julio and a Jamal ready to sign up for the MAGA movement." Some prominent Republicans,including party leadersandHaley, have already expressed concern about these race- and gender-based lines of attack, worried that the approach could backfire.
For Democrats, countering these attacks by explicitly characterizing them assexistorracistcan also be fraught, but Harris's campaign and surrogates may have found a more effective counter, one that turns gendered attacks back on Trump and Vance: They've recently started characterizing the Republican ticket as "weird," particularly in reference to their gendered language and stances on women's issues. "These guys are just weird. They're running for, like, 'He-Man Women Hater's Club' or something,"Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said.
AndTrump and Vance have taken the bait, also using "weird" to describe Harris's positions on climate and immigration. AsOmar Wasow, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley put it, "The classic maneuver when your opponent has a good position is to shift the battle to new terrain. So, 'they're weird' is not only more accessible, but potentially redefines the contest to 'normal vs not normal.'" And in so doing, gendered and racialized criticism could be rendered less relevant.
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It's still early, but polling certainly suggests that Harris is a "viable" candidate — she's beenpolling neck-and-neck with Trump, withsimilar levels of support as Biden, for whom a big selling point was his palatability to a wide coalition of voters and his ability to beat Trump. Whether or not Harris becomes the first female president of the United States, her status as a major party nominee, and the gendered and racialized attacks already invoked by her opponents, mean the campaign will certainly expose attitudes about women, race and politics in America.
