Hillary Clinton may have lost the 2016 election, but that doesn't mean we've given up hope on having a female president one day. After all, there'll be another election in four years, then another four years after that. So, who could be the first female president? The Democratic and Republican parties both offer several possibilities.
It's no coincidence that we've only had male presidents so far. Research suggests that, even when all other factors are equal, people are still less likely to elect a woman than a man. A recent study in Political Behavior , for example, revealed that people would vote for a male candidate who displayed signs of incompetence, whereas when a woman did, they'd vote for another party.
But the fact that Clinton won the popular vote suggests that Americans aren't entirely opposed to putting a woman in the White House. And maybe in 2020, 2024, or another year in the (hopefully not-so-far) future, we could have that opportunity again. In fact, we may have another chance to put Hillary Clinton in the White House, though several pundits have predicted she won't run again.
Here are a few other women we could possibly see run for — and maybe even become — president within our lifetimes.
Elizabeth Warren
Clinton was considering the Massachusetts senator as her running mate, though perhaps due to the difficulties of having an all-female ticket, she ultimately went with Tim Kaine instead. However, Warren remained an active supporter of Clinton's campaign, critic of Donald Trump, and favorite among young progressives, with 74 percent of Millennials in a Yik Yak survey hoping she'd be Clinton's VP. Since the election, many people on Twitter have been expressing hopes and even predictions that she'll run in 2020.
Kamala Harris
Harris became the United States' second black female senator and the first Indian American senator last week. (As Bustle's Zoe Ferguson pointed out, Harris also has Indian heritage from her mother's side.) She's currently the Attorney General of California, the state she'll also represent in the Senate. The Democrat is the daughter of an immigrant, an opponent of Trump's anti-immigration policies, a defender of Planned Parenthood, and an advocate for LGBTQ rights who refused to support Proposition 8.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Gillibrand succeeded Clinton as Senator of New York, and some have been speculating that she could also follow in her footsteps as the Democratic presidential candidate. Her best-selling memoir discussed breaking glass ceilings as a politician. When Time asked her if she'd ever run for President, she responded, "I will consider it someday, I’m sure, but not any time in the near future." That was in 2014, though, so maybe she'll be ready by the time the next primaries roll around.
Nikki Haley
After Trump became the nominee, the Republicans already started brainstorming who could represent them in 2020. Even before that, some suggested that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley could be a strong possibility. As an Indian American who issued the removal of the Confederate flag from the State House grounds, Republicans have viewed Haley as representing a form of conservatism less plagued by racism and intolerance.
Joni Ernst
Another Republican possibility could be Joni Ernst, an Iowa Senator who was considered as a possible running mate for Trump. While remaining an advocate for his campaign, she withdrew from the race to stay "focused on Iowa." But maybe she could be convinced to look beyond Iowa in 2020, as 58 percent of Republican caucus voters in a Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa poll said she was qualified to be president.
The 2016 Presidential election may be over, but the race for the position of our first female president has really just begun.
