ABSTRACT
This chapter examines voters' reactions to women candidates for the US Senate in 1990 and especially 1992. It examines not only gender differences in vote choice in Senate general elections, but in primary elections as well. The chapter determines whether there were significant gender gaps in Democratic primary elections in 1992. The response of women voters to women Senate candidates in 1992 was indeed special, and the Year of the Woman was possible in part because of the votes of women for women candidates. Data on turnout and voter interest come from the National Election Study Pooled Senate Election Study from 1988 through 1992. The data from the NES Pooled Senate Election Study show that 47 percent of the respondents in this study of Senate elections between 1988 and 1992 reported voting. Sue Tolleson Rinehart and Kenneth Hansen have argued that the gender gap in voting is best understood as the sum of separate gender gaps among Republicans and Democrats.
