Women make up a disproportionately small fraction of Americans holding public office — but a majority of Americans say they want that to change.
A P.R.R.I. poll released Tuesday showed about six in 10 Americans think the country would be better served by more women in public office, with women more strongly in favor by about two to one. But that goodwill did not appear generally to extend to the first female presidential nominee of a major party — poll results showed Hillary Clinton still has historically low popularity ratings, though she was associated with more positive leadership qualities than her opponent Donald Trump.
Support for women in public office was divided sharply by political affiliation: Democrats were more likely to say they supported more female representation with 77 percent in support. In comparison, only 37 percent of Republicans were likely to say the country would be better off with more women in public office.
Even Republican women were more likely to disagree that more women would benefit the country — 42 percent of those respondents said they would be in favor of more female politicians.
Americans overall were more likely to say that female candidates also had to be more qualified than men to succeed in the same job, though the degree to which respondents agreed also differed based on political party. Democrats were overwhelmingly likely to agree with the statement at 80 percent, compared to a slight majority of Republicans at 57 percent.
Clinton, who would become the first woman to hold the American presidency, polled with 41 percent support in the P.R.R.I. poll, compared to Trump’s 33 percent. But in a series of questions about who had more positive leadership qualities, Clinton outpolled Trump on almost every metric, including background and experience (64 to 31) and understanding the problems of poor Americans (57 to 35).
Clinton and Trump were rated almost equally poorly on the issues of honesty and trustworthiness (Clinton at 45 percent, Trump at 44) and strong and decisive leadership (47 percent each).
The poll, which surveyed 2,010 respondents from Sept. 1 to 27, has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.