Gender Stereotypes and Candidate Qualifications in Judicial Elections

A large literature documents the effects of gendered stereotyping on the outcomes of legislative and executive elections. Less attention has been paid to the effects of these stereotypes on judicial elections, a venue where candidates might encounter unique stereotypes. Further, existing research on judicial elections prioritizes one form of qualification—prior judicial experience—leaving unaddressed the effects of other professional experiences on voters’ choices in these contests. In this paper, we rely on a conjoint experiment to test the effects of candidate qualifications and gender stereotypes in U.S. state judicial elections. We find that, on average, women candidates are advantaged in judicial elections, though we find no evidence that citizens view women candidates as more qualified. Further, while voters do prefer candidates with prior judicial experience they also—contrary to the conventional wisdom—favor judges with prior political experience. Importantly, however, we observe minimal instances of gendered stereotyping in these elections. Our findings call for further research on the effects of gender in judicial elections.