Where Do Women Win Primaries? Asymmetric Opportunity Theory in Congressional Nominations

Abstract

We develop a party-asymmetric theory of gendered opportunity to explain how congressional primaries disadvantage women in different types of districts in distinct ways depending on partisan affiliation. Democratic women are disadvantaged in competitive districts, likely due to strategic discrimination, where party elites, donors, and primary voters prioritize “electability” and view men as safer choices, reducing women’s success despite organizational efforts to support their emergence. In contrast, Republican women are disadvantaged in safe districts, likely due to conservative primary voters and policy demanders applying ideological purity tests and assuming female candidates are less conservative than their male counterparts, meaning many qualified Republican women opt not to run. We call this asymmetric opportunity theory, and test it on an original dataset of recent congressional primaries (2006–2020) using two-stage Heckman selection models. Democratic women were less likely to win primaries in competitive districts, and Republican women are less likely to run in the districts where they are most likely to win general elections. We offer a new framework to understand women’s descriptive representation in primary elections, highlighting the need for party-specific solutions to women’s underrepresentation.