A lot has changed for women since 2016. What does that mean for Kamala Harris?

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump participate in the second presidential debate, in St. Louis, Oct. 9, 2016. Voters eager to elect the first female president pointed to anger over a loss of abortion rights, but also acknowledged a fear that sexism would remain difficult for Vice President Kamala Harris to overcome. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

By PATRICIA MAZZEI, JENNA RUSSELL, RICHARD FAUSSET AND CHRISTINA MORALES

In the eight years since Hillary Clinton failed to win the U.S. presidency, the workforce for the first time grew to include more college-educated women than college-educated men. The #MeToo movement exposed sexual harassment and toppled powerful men. The Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion.

Will any — or all — of it make a difference for Vice President Kamala Harris?

Harris seems almost certain to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee after President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek reelection. As such, she faces, fairly or not, some of the same electability questions that Clinton confronted in a nation that, unlike many of its peers around the globe, has yet to pick a woman as its leader.

A presidential contest pitting Harris against former President Donald Trump would represent a rematch of sorts: Trump would again have to run against a woman who held a top administration position and served in the Senate. He defeated Clinton in 2016 despite her winning the popular vote by a wide margin.

But the dynamics would be unquestionably different. Harris has neither the political legacy nor the baggage of Clinton. Trump, having served a turbulent term in office, is now a known quantity. Harris is Black and of South Asian descent.

And the country is not the same as it was eight long years ago.

“Women are angrier, and that could be motivating,” said Karen Crowley, 64, an independent voter and retired nurse in Concord, New Hampshire, who would not vote for Trump, did not feel like she could support Biden and now planned to back Harris.

Among the motivations Crowley cited were the demise of Roe v. Wade and comments and actions by Trump that many women see as sexist and misogynistic. “A woman president might be more possible now,” she said.

But for female voters and activists eager to break that elusive glass ceiling, there was also fear that sexism would remain difficult for Harris to overcome.

“It’s a patriarchy out there,” Crowley said. “She’s smart and she’s a prosecutor, but there are a lot of old white men who will want to stop her. The only thing wrong with her is that she’s a woman.”

Discussing the gender of a politician can feel reductive and regressive, especially when it does not seem as relevant in other countries. The United Kingdom has had three female prime ministers. Mexico elected its first female president this year.

Yet, when a woman runs for office in the United States, many voters still mention her gender unprompted in interviews, identifying it as a concern — often not for themselves, they say, but for the wider electorate.

Julia Blake, 80, of La Jolla, California, said she had spent a lot of time arguing with her book-club friends about whether a woman could be elected president. One after the next — professional women, with doctorates and master’s degrees — they said they thought the answer was no. Blake was indignant with them.

“I said, ‘If women think a woman can’t win, and they repeat that year after year, we will never get a female president,’” said Blake, who supported Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and also donated to Harris during the Democratic primary in 2020. “I don’t think they’re giving women enough credit.”

To be sure, party affiliation, not gender, remains most important for many voters. “I would not vote for her,” said Naomi Villalba, 74, a Republican from Dallas who supports Trump but thinks Harris is a better choice for Democrats than Biden.

Biden won 55% of the female vote in 2020, compared with Clinton’s 54% in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. Trump’s support among women grew slightly to 44% in 2020, up from 39% in 2016.

The prospect of having Harris atop the Democratic ticket energized some voters looking to elect a female president. But it also resurfaced old fears about the fact that Trump had lost to a man (Biden) but defeated a woman (Clinton).

Though ultimately not successful, Clinton’s candidacy did change the idea of what was possible, said Christina Wolbrecht, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame who studies women’s voting patterns. Klobuchar and Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., were taken seriously as candidates during the 2020 election, as was former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, who challenged Trump this year.

“That suggests to me that post-Hillary Clinton, people are increasingly comfortable with the idea of a woman president,” Wolbrecht said.

Forty-two percent of women felt it was at least somewhat important to elect a woman as president in their lifetime, according to a Pew Research Center report last year. In the poll, 39% of respondents, both male and female, said a female president would be better at working out compromises, and 37% said a woman would be better at maintaining a respectful tone in politics. (More than half said that gender did not matter on those measures.)

Harris appears to have a special bond with Black women in particular, who comprise a key part of the Democratic base and have been especially enthusiastic in their past support for her.

Luisa Wakeman, 57, a flight attendant in suburban Cobb County, Georgia, said women like her were relatively new to politics when they campaigned against Trump in 2016. Now, their informal and largely female-led networks in the area have matured into durable, battle-tested electoral machines.

“I think like many people, I’m feeling invigorated,” she said.

And she said she was impressed by Harris’ qualifications. “It’s not just because she’s a woman,” she said, “but I’m excited that she will make history.”