Sexism and candidate preferences in a comparative perspective: Evidence from the U.K., Canada and the U.S.

A growing body of research shows that sexism matters for political behaviour and electoral outcomes. Existing research has predominantly focused on the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, but recent work suggests that sexist attitudes are also important for voting behaviour even if gender appears less electorally salient, such as in the UK. Current scholarship however has focused either on Presidential elections or on national-level party choice. In this paper we extend this research by examining the role of sexist attitudes in candidate choice at the constituency (riding/district) level in the U.K., Canada and the United States. This allows us to examine a range of unexplored situations such as contests between two women candidates versus contests between a woman and a man; the role of seat marginality, as well as the intersection between candidate race and gender. The study hereby furthers our understanding of how sexist attitudes shape electoral choice in a range of different situations.