Heather Hurlburt

Last night’s State of the Union speech was shaped by the perception that we are in a catastrophic moment of political polarization. “It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency — that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better,” president Obama admitted.

For the last 30 years, analysts have framed gender issues in politics as a “gap” between how men and women vote. Will a given development, as Melissa Deckman recently asked in The Washington Post, “help the GOP close the gender gap?” Is some Democratic candidate “exploiting the gender gap?”