Kamala Harris Sees the Road to the Top, But Will Voters Put Her There?

Vice President Kamala Harris takes a giant leap for American womankind tonight as she accepts the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Chicago, becoming only the second woman ever to top the ticket for a major party. According to the latest polls, she is narrowly favored to become the first woman president of the United States.

Strikingly, the U.S. has trailed much of the world in equal representation in the halls of power. Twenty-five nations currently have women leaders; 78 countries have had a female head of state, some of them many times over, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Women’s Power Index. Mexico recently elected its first woman leader, who will take office Oct. 1. So why has it been so difficult for the U.S. to shatter this highest, hardest glass ceiling?

There’s not one factor that has kept American women out of the Oval Office; our political system, structural barriers and gender bias all play a part. For example, the U.S. is the only presidential democracy that doesn’t choose its leader through a direct election. Though she earned nearly 3 million more votes than former President Donald Trump in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would have become our first “Madame President” if not for the Electoral College, a system that gives extra weight to voters in states that are more rural, more white and tend to vote more Republican. The entire U.S. political ecosystem warrants a sideways glance for the ways in which it’s biased against women.

Women aspiring to the top office typically fare better in countries where executive power is shared between a prime minister and president, those that use proportional voting and those where women are highly represented in legislative, state and local offices, according to research from the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

While Americans have elected more women to office in recent years – including 28% of the current Congress and a record 13 of 50 state governors – we still have far to go. According to the CFR index, the U.S. ranks 69th out of 193 countries in gender parity in politics. While 94 countries – almost half of those in the world – have mandatory quotas for women in politics (others have voluntary party quotas), the U.S. has done little to address the underrepresentation of half of our population in politics.

Widespread gender bias among the American public is partly to blame. Though Hillary Clinton was seen as more qualified to be president and “more presidential” than Trump, according to multiple polls conducted weeks before the 2016 election, studies after Election Day showed that sexism played an underappreciated role in her loss.

Unfortunately, chauvinism in America persists, even as the country has seen an assault on women’s rights in the last two years since the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Only 18% of American adults say it’s very or extremely important to them that a woman is elected president in their lifetime, according to a Pew Research Center poll last September. Forty-six percent believed Americans are not ready to elect a woman president, according to Pew, a figure that rose to 54% for a Black woman candidate. This so-called hidden or strategic bias can cause voters to withhold their support from a female candidate if they see her as destined to lose.

So it comes as no surprise that Harris’ candidacy was greeted with sexist and racist attacks, led by Trump, his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and other elected Republicans who implied that Harris, whose public service record has run the gamut from attorney general to senator, was an unqualified “DEI hire.” The swipe at both her gender and her mixed race echoes a GOP talking point against programs that support diversity, equity and inclusion. Trump asserted that foreign leaders would “walk all over her” in an August Fox News interview, with the unspoken implication that this at least in part because she’s a woman. Trump has gone further online, belittling her intelligence often on his Truth Social platform.

The GOP leaned into the chauvinism, trumpeting Trump’s arrival onstage at the Republican National Convention last month with the James Brown song “It’s a Man’s Man's Man's World” and featuring testosterone-heavy speakers such as WWE wrestling star Hulk Hogan.

We’ve reached a low point in politics – but potentially also a turning point. Harris might actually win; being the second female presidential nominee may help. That’s because Clinton’s 2016 put cracks in that “highest glass ceiling,” as Clinton called it. Just four years later in 2020, six women (including Harris) mounted bids for the Democratic nomination. And in the Republican primary this year, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who presented a coherent pitch and responded crisply to sexist attacks, was the last candidate standing in Trump’s path to the nomination.

America in 2024 is a world away where we were eight years ago – particularly demographically. The 2020 census revealed the growing multiracial and multiethnic character of American society, with 40% of Americans identifying as nonwhite. These groups are mobilizing in unprecedented numbers since Harris replaced President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. In the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Harris has pulled ahead of Trump in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll released Aug. 10.

While Trump’s base appeared unfazed by his felony convictions over paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels and being found liable for sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll, the cumulative impact of his sexist comments and actions may have finally reached a tipping point. Voters have turned out in red and blue states to defend reproductive rights, with abortion rights winning in every election since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Vance is hardly helping Trump’s case with his comments disparaging “childless cat ladies” and his shocking suggestion that childless women should have less of a political voice than those who have children.

The over-the-top negativity of the Trump campaign and Harris’ decision to meet his slurs head-on while staying focused on the issues seems to be paying off, as she now leads in battleground states’ polling averages. Americans rate her as more honest, empathetic and disciplined than Trump and equally as strong and capable of handling crises, according to a recent AP poll. These are promising signs that the gender bias tide may be turning.

What can she do to keep the momentum and persuade independents and battleground voters that she is the best candidate? Stay focused on the issues, both the kitchen table, domestic policy concerns and foreign policy.

The spotlight will finally shine on Harris tonight, after days of praise from other pioneering women in American politics, including Hillary Clinton, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former first lady Michelle Obama. To keep the momentum going through November’s election, Harris has to persuade voters she has better policies and knows how to implement them as a fellow American who just so happens to be a woman.