In 2007, University of Oklahoma political science professor Cindy Simon Rosenthal was elected mayor of Norman, Oklahoma, after having served as a member of its city council. Was her activity unique within the political science profession among female political scientists? Her election stimulated the curiosity of some of us in the…

Studies in several relatively low-population, rural states in the 1970s show few differences in the types of state legislative races in which men and women are nominated and how well they do at the ballot box. This study increases knowledge of the role of gender in state legislative campaigns, geographically and over time, by exploring the…