Can the Fairer Sex Save the Day? Voting for Women After Corruption Scandals in Latin America

Voters often perceive female politicians to be less corrupt than male politicians, and recent work posits that political parties use this perception to their advantage by running more female candidates when corruption is salient. However, few studies have tested if voters actually respond more positively to women in corrupt contexts as theorized. Using a preregistered survey experiment fielded in Mexico, Guatemala, Uruguay, and Chile, I test if mayoral female candidates are preferred by voters after a corruption scandal. In all four cases, a corruption scandal lowers respondents’ likelihood of voting for a new candidate from the scandalized incumbent party regardless of the candidate’s gender, but only Guatemalan respondents have a significantly higher vote likelihood for a female candidate post-scandal. In Mexico, Uruguay, and Chile, there is no difference in vote likelihood across candidate gender after a corruption scandal. These findings shed important light on how voters’ perceptions about the connection between women and corruption can be context-dependent. When parties run more female candidates after corruption scandals, the strategy may not always be successful at maintaining voter support.