Poll Finds Americans Don’t Care About Candidates’ Gender

Eighty-five percent of Americans recently surveyed say they don’t care about gender when deciding whether to vote for or against a candidate, despite multiple voices encouraging them to do otherwise.

The Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) commissioned the poll, which found 85 percent of likely voters saying candidate gender is not a determining factor in deciding whom they support. The poll found virtually no difference in the responses of women and men.

The findings come as a record number of women are running for public office in 2018.

“While much has been written about the need for more women in government, something we applaud, it is encouraging that the American voter is rejecting identity politics,” IWV President Tammy Bruce said in a statement when the poll was released Wednesday.

CNN is among the national news outlets that have displayed headlines about the midterms, making it the “year of women.” The optimism isn’t just about there being a record number of women running, but also what that could mean for making the legislature more diverse. As the poll shows, however, voters care more about the candidates’ qualifications.

Conservative voters had the highest rate of respondents who felt gender is not a determining factor, at 92 percent. They were followed by Republicans, at 90 percent; independents, at 89 percent; and moderates, at 86 percent.

The figure for Democratic voters was 75 percent, followed by liberals, at 69 percent.

McLaughlin & Associates was commissioned to do the poll, which canvassed 1,000 respondents who are likely to vote in the midterm elections of 2016. Republican pollster and company president John McLaughlin discussed the findings when pushing back against the narrative that gender matters in elections, according to RealClearPolitics.

“This election is not about gender; it’s about what’s happening with working-class voters,” McLaughlin said, according to RealClearPolitics. “Republicans need a specific agenda, which contrasts their ideas to the Democrats.”

The poll also found that 31 percent of voters believe that more congresswomen would be beneficial but that gender isn’t a determining factor. It also showed that 54 percent of Americans think that the country benefits from having the best-qualified candidates in Congress.

The IWV is an advocacy arm of the nonprofit educational foundation Independent Women’s Forum.