Since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race on July 21, 2024, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris’s campaign has generated widespread enthusiasm and attention. She quickly became the official Democratic presidential nominee and erased Donald Trump’s lead over Biden in national and swing-state polling.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, have also drawn tens of thousands of supporters to their recent rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada.

Although things could change dramatically over the next two-plus months, there is a real possibility that the United States may finally elect its first female president.

But in polling that we conducted in August 2024, after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, we found that sexism is still a powerful force in American politics.

Hope and change?

Yes, the scars of the 2016 campaign—in which sexism played a key role in Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Trump—are still fresh for Democrats. But many hope that America has changed and has become more accepting of women in leadership roles.

Harris’s gender, this argument goes, won’t be a significant deterrent for voters.

On the surface, our recent nationally representative survey of 1,000 American adults supports this, with 51% of Americans agreeing with the statement: “America is ready for its first African American female president.” Only 23% of Americans disagreed.