Left Behind or Left In? Party Ideology and the Gender Gap in Candidate Persistence

Do parties matter in the gender differences in candidate resiliency after electoral defeat? We argue that they do. Party can shape whether a loss sidelines a woman or positions her for another run. Left‐leaning parties—where gender inclusion is embedded in programmatic commitments—might also be more likely than their conservative counterparts to reinvest in defeated female candidates, increasing their likelihood of rerunning after loss. We present a cross‐national analysis on this question by applying a consistent within‐party regression‐discontinuity design to open‐list municipal elections in Chile and Brazil. The pattern is clear: a loss discourages women in right‐leaning parties significantly more than it discourages men, while left‐leaning parties exhibit a smaller gender gap. These results underscore the role of parties, rather than individual motivation or electoral rules alone, as a key gatekeeper in the female candidacy pipeline.