Will America ever elect a woman president? Experts weigh in after Kamala Harris loss

DURHAM, N.C. — For millions of women who believed America was on the precipice of electing its first female president, the 2024 election is another disappointment.

Republican Donald Trump beat Democrat Kamala Harris more decisively than his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, who is the only other woman in U.S. history to secure a major party’s presidential nomination.

“A lot of people (on Election Day) were talking about being ‘nauseously optimistic,’ and obviously we ended up more on the nauseous side,” said Hannah Cocca, who campaigned for Harris in a deep red Eastern North Carolina county, Onslow.

Sonya Glavin, from Creedmoor, in the suburbs of the Triangle, got involved in politics after Trump’s first victory and said she felt “disappointment and sadness,” as well as “shock.” Her 16-year-old daughter, meanwhile, was “mad more than sad.”

So, will it ever happen? Will a woman ever crack America’s highest glass ceiling?

“I believe that a woman president is not just a possibility — it is an inevitability,” said Dianna Wynn, president of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters.

International press have been particularly interested in the question, Jean Sinzdak said this week, after a Trump victory was sealed. Sinzdak is associate director of the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

“So many men have run for the presidency and lost. I mean, they have in every single election,” she pointed out.

In 2016, even though the Electoral College went to Trump, Clinton won the popular vote, which Sinzdak said “should put to rest the idea that women cannot get elected.”

“There’s certainly a generation of kids who are growing up that have never not seen a woman on the ballot,” Sinzdak said. “We have more and more women that are serving in higher offices that just adds to the pipeline of women who might run (for president).”

Most Americans say they don’t believe the president’s gender matters, according to a Pew Research survey conducted last year.

For the roughly 40% who do think gender makes a difference, they tend to think a woman would perform better, especially on things like working out compromises or maintaining a respectful tone.

That sentiment is most commonly held by Democratic women and least pronounced among Republican men, the researchers found.

“There is still sexism and there are biases against women, and we see that in politics,” Wynn said. “However, I think we are making progress.”

Three in four Americans believed in 2023 that it was likely a woman president would be elected in their lifetime, another Pew survey found.

Cocca said in the aftermath of the election, she found herself thinking about Faith, a recently widowed woman in her 70s she met while campaigning in Jacksonville.

Faith showed up to the polls Tuesday, dripping in symbolic pearl jewelry, “to be a Black woman proudly trying to get a Black female president elected in a Southern parking lot in a deep red Republican county,” Cocca said.

“I do believe in my lifetime, I will see a woman president,” said Cocca, who is 32. “I’m still optimistic about that, but I’m disgusted and nauseous at the idea that she won’t.”

Exit polls suggest a gender gap of about 10 percentage points between the presidential candidates, with most women voting for Harris and most men picking Trump. But a majority of white women, 53%, supported Trump, according to Associated Press polling.

Polls consistently found the economy was the top issue in 2024, and most voters hold negative views about it.

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