Once again, a Trump win has 'insiders' questioning women's electability. Mikie Sherrill shrugs it off in New Jersey.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss in the presidential race has given rise, again, to whispered worries in the Democratic Party about female candidates and electability — resurrecting a fraught conversation that bubbled for years after President Donald Trump’s first victory over Hillary Clinton.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss in the presidential race has given rise, again, to whispered worries in the Democratic Party about female candidates and electability — resurrecting a fraught conversation that bubbled for years after President Donald Trump’s first victory over Hillary Clinton.
The whisper campaign has started to some extent in New Jersey, where this year’s governor’s race will be one of Democrats’ first big electoral tests since Trump won his second term.
In the Trump years, some Democratic voters and strategists have worried aloud about whether it’s “safe” to back female candidates if there are male voters who wouldn’t support them in general elections. It was a theme for parts of the Democratic presidential primaries in 2020, when the party was choosing a candidate to take on Trump.
Even as some are once again questioning women's electability, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the only woman in the crowded New Jersey Democratic primary for governor, has been racking up support in large part because her backers believe she is best positioned to win in November. But Sherrill did acknowledge that broader questions about women’s ability to win persist.
“I hear that from insiders,” Sherrill said in a recent interview. “And it’s funny, that’s always been kind of the case,” she added, saying someone at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told her during her first run for the House in 2018 that “people didn’t think a woman could win in New Jersey.”
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