The Influence of Gender and Race On the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election: A Timeline

Our friends at Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) have created a detailed, interactive timeline, Tracking Gender in the 2020 Presidential Election, which “applies a gender and intersectional lens to key events during the 2020 presidential campaign.”

Highlighting key moments from 2020, the interactive timeline reveals “how candidates navigate campaigns; how candidates are perceived, evaluated, and treated by voters, media, and opponents; and how voters make electoral decisions.”

There is much to celebrate when looking back at the most diverse field of candidates running for the Democratic nomination, the ascent of Kamala Harris to become the first woman Vice President, and a cabinet that looks more like America than ever before. However, we must also understand that significant barriers will continue to exist as long as the false narrative that women and people of color are not electable persists.

We encourage you to spend some time digging into the timeline and reviewing CAWP’s assessment of the gender and race dynamics at play, as candidate announcements for 2024 will be here before you know it. There are enough real barriers to running a successful campaign. Women and people of color seeking higher office should not have to prove themselves any more than the white men incumbents and candidates they run against.