The book begins by laying out a story about the impact of the presidential race on the congressional races in 2016. At the center of this story lie two unanticipated developments that characterized the 2016 election. The first of these was the unusual centrality of sexism and gender stereotypes to the presidential race in 2016. In a society that appears, by some measures, to have taken strides toward greater gender equality, what happened in Congressional campaigns when “retrograde” views on gender unexpectedly emerged in the competition for the presidency? The second unexpected occurrence was the nomination of Donald Trump as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, and the subsequent assumption that he would lose the presidential contest to Hillary Clinton. What impact did this development have on Congressional campaigns? Congressional candidates in the 2016 election found themselves in a fairly novel situation generated by the presidential race: gender issues became central to the presidential campaign, and, in turn, to the entire election process.
