Author Date

2023-6

Degree Name

Department

Political Science

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Publication Date

2023-6

First Faculty Advisor

Elizabeth McGuire

First Faculty Reader

Darren Hawkins

Honors Coordinator

Darin Self

Keywords

Gender, religion, Spain, election, Muslim, Catholic

Abstract

While the existing literature illustrates that voters living in Western countries are likely to elect female candidates and less likely to elect minority non-Christian candidates, literature has not yet addressed how the intersectionality of gender and religion affect voter preference. In this paper, I investigate how a candidate’s gender and religion interact to affect their likelihood of being elected. I use vignettes in a conjoint survey experiment of Spanish voters to show voter preference across two intersecting identities: gender and religion. I find that female Muslim candidates are significantly more electable than male Muslim candidates. This contributes to the body of literature on voter choice by addressing the intersectionality of gender and religion. Additionally, I test a candidate's perceived trustworthiness and likability as explanatory variables for this difference but no not find significant differences. While the mechanisms remain uncertain, this research highlights that the intersectionality of gender and religion plays a significant role in candidate electability.