Candidate Gender, Campaign Appeals, and Voter Support in Judicial Elections

作者：Anna Gunderson, Jeong Hyun Kim, Elizabeth A. Lane, Nichole M. Bauer, Belinda Creel Davis, Kathleen Searles · 发表于：The Journal of Politics · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1086/730721 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Gender Politics and Representation、Judicial and Constitutional Studies、Electoral Systems and Political Participation

The number of female candidates running for judicial office has increased, yet we know little about how they campaign or how voters evaluate them. We build a theoretical framework of gendered strategic messaging for judicial candidates. We argue female candidates will highlight criminal justice reform, while male candidates will use tough-on-crime appeals. We test these expectations by analyzing judicial campaign ads from 2017 and 2018. Second, we design a survey experiment that tests how voters respond to tough-on-crime versus reform messages from judicial candidates. We find female candidates use some tough-on-crime appeals less frequently than men, and gender is associated with some mentions of reform appeals, but not all. We find little evidence that gender interacts with campaign appeal type to predict voter support. This article points to the importance of investigating judicial appeals, how those appeals translate into electoral success, and how they differ from the traditional legislative context.