VOTING CUES IN LOW-INFORMATION ELECTIONS - CANDIDATE GENDER AS A SOCIAL INFORMATION VARIABLE IN CONTEMPORARY UNITED-STATES ELECTIONS

Theory: Theories of low-information voting are used to examine the eff ect of candidate demographic characteristics on voting behavior, speci fically candidate gender. Hypotheses: For voters in low-information el ections, candidate gender operates as a social information cue signali ng that women candidates are more liberal than men candidates of the s ame party. As a result, the gender of a candidate affects ideological voting. Method: Logistic regression analysis is performed on data from the 1986 through 1994 American National Election Studies. Results: Wo men Democratic candidates fare better than men Democratic candidates a mong more liberal voters and worse among conservative voters, especial ly those with minimal knowledge of the candidates. The effect is less clear with Republican women candidates who provide conflicting informa tional cues (woman and Republican).