British Journal of Political Science
Gender and Presidential Vote Choice in Latin America
2025-12-26
Why do women and men vote differently in presidential elections? Much research on gender and vote choice has focused on the United States and Western Europe, with less attention to the Global South. We develop a theory of sex gaps in presidential voting, which shows how ideology, feminism, and gendered personalities may help explain them. To test this, we designed and fielded surveys for presidential elections in Chile in 2021, Brazil in 2022, and Argentina in 2023. Results show that ideology and feminism largely explain men’s and women’s divergent votes for presidential candidates. Leftists, self-identified feminists, and respondents with more feminist attitudes were more likely to vote for Gabriel Boric instead of José Antonio Kast, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over Jair Bolsonaro, and Sergio Massa rather than Javier Milei. Unlike in the United States, Latin Americans’ gendered personalities do not seem to influence their vote choice.