Voters under 50 are the least open to electing a female president, and four in 10 Americans personally know someone who would not elect a woman to the White House, a new poll finds.
The American University poll, shared first with POLITICO, reveals a complicated portrait of how voters view women in politics. A majority supports electing more women to office, yet female politicians face persistent headwinds over trust on key issues like national security. They also run up against double standards, with voters saying a female president must be both “tough” and “likable.”
Nonetheless, most voters support electing more women and believe the government gets more done with women in office, according to the national poll of 801 registered voters conducted last month. It was commissioned by the university’s Women and Politics Institute and had a 3.5-point margin of error.
Nearly one in five voters said they or someone they are close to would not elect a woman presidential candidate. That includes one-quarter of women under 50 and 20 percent of men under 50, who said they would not back a qualified female candidate for president, while 13 percent of men and women over 50 said they wouldn’t be open to supporting a woman for president.
“This survey reveals a powerful paradox,” said Viva de Vicq, the survey’s lead pollster. “Voters trust women on the issues that matter most and want to see more women in office. Yet when asked about the presidency, bias and narrow expectations resurface.”
The survey comes nearly one year after Kamala Harris lost the presidential race, raising questions about female electability in a country that has only chosen men for the White House.
Voters are divided over how the former vice president’s candidacy impacted future female contenders. More than 40 percent of independent voters believe Harris complicated others’ paths — pessimism that pervaded much of the upper echelons of Democratic politics after the election, when Harris lost to Trump by wider margins than Hillary Clinton did eight years prior.
Reflecting on the 2024 election, the poll found that only one-third of voters listen to “bro culture” podcasts. Of those who do, four in five believe those podcasts affected the election. Half of those surveyed said former President Joe Biden hurt the Democratic Party.
The poll said voters trust female politicians more than men to advance women’s equality, abortion and childcare. But more voters trust men than women to handle global conflicts. The “‘old boys club’ culture in politics” was cited as the biggest deterrent for women running for office, closely followed by negative media portrayal.
Of the 2025 landscape, women surveyed are generally more pessimistic about the economy than they were in 2024. Women under 50 are particularly feeling the pinch with a 15-point jump in negative views of the economy.
