--- title: Gender Penalty for Female 2020 Democratic Candidates: Study description: A new study finds that female candidates are attacked significantly more often than male candidates by trolls and fake news accounts. canonical: https://time.com/5717376/female-democratic-candidates-2020-twitter-study/ author: Suyin Haynes article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-11-05T10:37:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:43:31.251Z article:section: Politics og:title: Female 2020 Democratic Candidates Face 'Gender Penalty' Online, Study Finds og:description: A new study finds female candidates face more attacks from trolls and fake news accounts og:url: https://time.com/5717376/female-democratic-candidates-2020-twitter-study/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8e79583d606e8c05/698a054b929fad775fbf52c8/kamala-harris-study-fake-news.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Presidential Candidates Attend Town Hall Hosted By Formerly Incarcerated People og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Female 2020 Democratic Candidates Face 'Gender Penalty' Online, Study Finds twitter:description: A new study finds female candidates face more attacks from trolls and fake news accounts twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8e79583d606e8c05/698a054b929fad775fbf52c8/kamala-harris-study-fake-news.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Female 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Face a 'Gender Penalty' Online, Study Finds > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Suyin Haynes](https://time.com/author/suyin-haynes/) ## Suyin Haynes Nov 5, 2019 10:37 AM UTC  Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) speaks during a town hall at the Eastern State Penitentiary on October 28, 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) speaks during a town hall at the Eastern State Penitentiary on October 28, 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Mark Makela—Getty Images by [Suyin Haynes](https://time.com/author/suyin-haynes/) ## Suyin Haynes Nov 5, 2019 10:37 AM UTC A new analysis of Twitter and news coverage surrounding the [Democratic primary candidates](https://time.com/5705834/impeachment-democratic-primary/) for the U.S. 2020 presidential elections shows that female candidates are attacked significantly more often than male candidates by trolls and fake news accounts. The report, published Nov. 5 by Lucina Di Meco, Global Fellow at The Wilson Center, used artificial intelligence in partnership with non-partisan data analytics firm Marvelous AI to track the coverage of six Democratic candidates on Twitter, measuring the volume of conversation around each candidate between December 2018 and April 2019\. [Joe Biden](https://time.com/5634771/joe-biden-problems/), [Bernie Sanders](https://time.com/longform/bernie-sanders-2020/), [Pete Buttigieg](https://time.com/longform/pete-buttigieg-2020/), [Elizabeth Warren](https://time.com/longform/elizabeth-warren-2020/), [Kamala Harris](https://time.com/5691643/kamala-harris-2020/) and [Amy Klobuchar](https://time.com/5460620/2020-presidential-candidates/) were the candidates included in the study, which forms part of the broader report titled [_#ShePersisted: Women, Politics and Power in the New Media World_](https://www.she-persisted.org/). These online conversations were analyzed for one week after each candidate’s official campaign launch between December 2018 and April 2019, depending on the candidate. Marvelous AI also examined the political bias and credibility of Twitter users participating in the conversation, as well as the themes and narratives surrounding each candidate. For each candidate, tweets were collected for a week following their official campaign kickoff. The volume of conversation around each candidate on social media fell into a similar bracket across both the male and female candidates, peaking at around 40,000 to 50,000 tweets per day, with Kamala Harris generating significantly more attention on Twitter than others in the field.  Number of Tweets per day after Democratic candidates launched their campaign to be the 2020 presidential candidate Laura Restrepo More social media attention on a candidate was not necessarily a positive. The study concluded that social media narratives around female candidates were more negative and focused on issues of character and identity, rather than electability or policy. The largest narrative on social media across the political spectrum surrounding [Elizabeth Warren](https://time.com/5426138/elizabeth-warren-transparency-donald-trump/) focused on her character, in particular the narrative that she “[lied about her ethnic heritage.](https://time.com/5425427/cherokee-nation-responds-elizabeth-warrens-dna-test/)” The dominant narrative for [Kamala Harris](http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/kamala-harris/) focused on her identity, attacking her as “not authentically American” because [both her parents were immigrants to the U.S. ](https://time.com/3665461/kamala-harris-senate/) The focus on identity and character was largely the norm for female candidates, whereas it was the exception for male candidates. The dominant narrative surrounding [Joe Biden](https://time.com/5564172/joe-biden-2020-nancy-gibbs/) focused on previous [allegations of inappropriate touching](https://time.com/5578143/biden-inappropriate-touching/), but this was still linked to his electability rather than his character or identity. “The role that social media platforms’ click-optimization algorithms played in spreading the misogyny and other biases is by now well documented,” said Olya Gurevich, Chief Scientist and co-founder at Marvelous AI. “I believe that technologists now have the moral responsibility, as well as the opportunity, to help ameliorate the unfairness in media, and this goes beyond just changing the click incentives.”  Top narratives persisting across the political spectrum for each candidate included in the study Laura Restrepo The study also showed that female candidates received more attacks from right-wing and fake-news accounts, yet also received less traditional news media coverage compared to their male counterparts. During the time period reviewed in the study, Twitter conversations about female presidential candidates were more heavily skewed toward the political right as well toward less credible accounts. Credibility ratings and political bias of users in these conversations were assessed by their link sharing behavior on Twitter, based on analysis from [The Media Bias Fact Check](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/) project, which rates the credibility of English-language news websites. The study ultimately found the presence of a “gender penalty” for female candidates.  Average bias/credibility of campaign launch coverage for each candidate included in the study Laura Restrepo That penalty is all too familiar to Mini Timmaraju, now Executive Director of External Affairs at Comcast. “I noticed that as I became more active and gained more followers, I was increasingly followed by trolls and obvious bots, posting inflammatory replies and comments to intimidate and harass our female followers,” she told the study’s author, speaking about her time as Women’s Vote Director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Timmaraju was one of 88 women leaders in politics, civil society, journalism, television and technology from 30 countries interviewed for the report, which also looks at the broader relationship traditional and social media have with women’s leadership and representation in democracies. “It made me realize that the amount of energy that a woman has to spend online to defend her positions and her reputation is just overwhelming.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5717376/female-democratic-candidates-2020-twitter-study/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5717376/female-democratic-candidates-2020-twitter-study/"},"headline":"Female 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Face a 'Gender Penalty' Online, Study Finds","datePublished":"2019-11-05T10:37:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:43:31.251Z","description":"A new study finds that female candidates are attacked significantly more often than male candidates by trolls and fake news accounts.","url":"https://time.com/5717376/female-democratic-candidates-2020-twitter-study/","keywords":["Social Media","Tech","AI","2020 Election"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8e79583d606e8c05/698a054b929fad775fbf52c8/kamala-harris-study-fake-news.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Suyin Haynes","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/suyin-haynes/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8e79583d606e8c05/698a054b929fad775fbf52c8/kamala-harris-study-fake-news.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Presidential Candidates Attend Town Hall Hosted By Formerly Incarcerated People","caption":"Presidential Candidates Attend Town Hall Hosted By Formerly Incarcerated People","creditText":"Mark Makela—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/social-media/","name":"Social Media"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5717376/female-democratic-candidates-2020-twitter-study/","name":"Female 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Face a 'Gender Penalty' Online, Study Finds"}}]}] ```