Hillary Clinton's loss in 2016 made some voters question whether a woman can be president.
Now, eight years later, a second woman, Vice President Kamala Harris, tops the presidential ticket. Comparisons have been drawn between the two candidates and their campaigns; however, Dr. Malia Bowers, a professional lecturer from DePaul University, notes a big difference: Clinton made the historic nature central to her campaign.
"'I'm with Her.' You think back at the DNC when she came out to give her speech, and there was that huge thing of the glass ceiling shattering. That kind of imagery, that kind of rhetoric, has not really been present for Kamala Harris," said Bowers, who teaches courses in public law and American politics.
"There's really good research showing that sexism did play a role in Hillary Clinton's loss in 2016. So, I think that it is a strategic move to kind of shift the conversation away from identity markers," Bowers said.
Instead, Bowers believes Harris has positioned herself as the "change" candidate.
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"You look at her, you know she's a woman. You look at her, you know she's Black. She doesn't have to say, 'I'm Black and I'm a woman.' And for Hillary, it was different. Hillary was the first. It's always different for the first," said Democratic strategist Delmarie Cobb.
Cobb was the Illinois press secretary for Clinton in 2016. She believes 2008 was a stronger campaign for the former first lady because she was campaigning more often and held larger events then than in 2016.
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"There was this feeling that we don't have to put her out there. She doesn't have to work as hard because 'we got this,'" Cobb said.
Cobb believes Harris' staff has learned from Clinton's loss. Harris also has a different political landscape from Clinton, with some Democratic voters still energized over abortion rights following the overturning of Roe v. Wade and after 2020, they now have the knowledge that former President Donald Trump can be beaten.
Another big difference lies in their fundraising. Clinton was reliant on large donors, which would be typical of a well-connected Washington insider. Meanwhile, Harris has a large level of small donors, which is more typical for female candidates and may demonstrate more support from the ground up, according to Bowers.
Yet, the vice president still faces an uphill battle, in part because of her gender.
"Women are often held to a much higher standard in terms of their qualifications, their competency, their morality, their virtue, and also their likability. So women have to work twice, if not more, as hard as men to show that they are capable of holding an executive position, especially," Bowers said.
Research this year from the non-partisan non-profit She Should Run found that two-thirds of women are less likely to consider running for office because politics seems toxic.
Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie echoed that in an interview with NBC 5: People don't want to subject their families to the current harsh political environment.
"We had some seats that we couldn't find anybody," said McCombie, R-Savanna.
McCombie is among the top-ranking women in the state now. However, initially, she said she had no interest in politics.
"I had a local business in downtown Savanna and wanted to put a sandwich board on the sidewalk. The ordinance didn't allow for it. So, what do you do? You go join the city council to change an ordinance. And that's really where it all began," she explained.
The She Should Run survey found that 61 percent of women have never considered running for office. Bowers cited several likely reasons, including family structure and a lack of financial resources.
"Women are … in the home. They're working out of the home. They're active in their church. They're active in their non-for-profits. And then somebody comes forward and says, 'You know what? You'd be great on a school board, or you'd be great in the city council.' And then you're like, 'No, no, I wouldn't. I have no time for that.'" McCombie said.
Those close to Clinton remember the heavy scrutiny she was subjected to, over everything from her emails to her pantsuits.
"(Hillary Clinton) was married to a president, and so she knows all the world leaders, and she's probably the most connected person there is, and she didn't win, so they know how hard it is for a woman to win," Cobb said.
A big question that's been asked on both sides of the aisle: Would Harris be the presidential nominee without President Joe Biden's endorsement? Cobb says no.
"Had there not been a Biden-Harris ticket, she could not have inherited not only his money from the campaign, but his infrastructure," Cobb said.
However, experts are quick to point out that strides have been made for women in politics since 2016, including an influx of lawmakers into Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, in 2018.
So, is the country ready for a female president? That remains to be seen.
"A majority of voters were ready in 2016, (just) not in the right places for the for Hillary to get the electoral college win. Polling pretty consistently shows that at least just over 50 percent of people are extremely excited to have a woman in the White House," Bowers said.
