Moms in the House: The Raced-Gendered Experience of Mothers Running for Political Office

Shifting societal norms around parenthood and politics require a fuller understanding of how diverse mothers running for political office shape their electoral appeals, and how these are received by voters. Mothers can use maternal appeals, “verbal statement or visual images that indicate a candidate’s commitment to maternal values or highlights a candidate’s maternal traits” to connect their identity to a campaign issue or differentiate themselves from the competition in the race (although notably, there are partisan cleavages in terms of using motherhood identity). Previous research on maternal appeals, such as the “Grizzly mom” and “Moral mom”, are often based on the concept of a ‘universalized’ motherhood linked to whiteness. However, motherhood “occurs in specific historical contexts framed by interlocking structures of race, class and gender contexts”. Black and Latina mothers in particular are less able to access ‘grizzly’ frames due to perceptions as being an “Angry (Black) woman”. Consequently, we know little about the variation of types of moms running for office and the distinct opportunities/barriers they may face. This motivates my dissertation project’s overall research question: How does the identity of motherhood intersect with racial/ethnic identities of women candidates to shape their political opportunities? This project specifically investigates three components of this question: (1) What type of motherhood appeals do candidates running for Congress use? (2) Do these strategies vary by candidate factors (race/partisanship)? (3) Do voters respond to maternal appeals in similar ways regardless of candidate attributes? I argue that mothers running for office use several maternal appeals that vary by candidate identifiers, such as race, class and partisanship. My research project investigates these questions using an intersectional and mixed methods research approach. I integrate a descriptive qualitative case study that analyzes the campaign outputs of six Congressional non-incumbent winners who ran between 2018 – 2022, who are mothers to children under 18, and who vary by race/ethnicity and partisanship. In my descriptive case study, I analyze outputs (including 41 campaign ads, 3,027 social media posts, and 12 webpages) to determine the presence and types of maternal values they use to frame their campaign appeal to voters. I identify new appeals relevant to diverse groups of mother candidates, including the model minority and supermom frames. I integrate these findings into a novel survey experiment to investigate which of these maternal appeals are likely to be successful with different types of voters. This descriptive data from the case studies ensures the experiment is grounded in realism, while the experiment helps strengthen causal claims about the effect of different appeals on voter perceptions. By integrating mixed methods of case studies and experiment my project will obtain insight into interactions between candidate and voter preferences when it comes to the identity of motherhood and how this varies based on race/ethnicity and partisanship. Understanding the nuances of maternal appeals and their reception among diverse voter groups can contribute to more informed and ethically grounded electoral strategies, fostering a political landscape that resonates with the values of a diverse society.