Trumping politics as usual: masculinity, misogyny, and the 2016 elections

Introduction -- Does gender matter in elections? -- Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton: gender norms in the presidential race -- In the shadow of Trump: how the presidential contest affected House and Senate primaries -- Running with a "loser": the Trump Effect in the House and Senate general election campaigns -- The gender content of Senate campaign advertisements -- Conclusion

In many elections, candidates frame their appeals in gendered ways - they compete, for instance, over who is more 'masculine.' In the 2016 presidential election, however, the choice between the first major-party female candidate and a man who exhibited a persistent pattern of misogyny made gender more prominent than in any previous election in the United States. This text explores how the Trump and Clinton campaigns used gender as a political weapon, and how the presidential race changed the ways in which House and Senate campaigns were waged in 2016 and 2018.