The following is a list of female U.S. presidential and vice presidential nominees and invitees. Nominees are candidates nominated or otherwise selected by political parties for particular offices. Listed as nominees or nomination candidates are those women who achieved ballot access in at least one state (or, before the institution of government-printed ballots, had ballots circulated by their parties). They each may have won the nomination of one of the U.S. political parties (either one of the two major parties or one of the third parties), or made the ballot as an independent, and in either case must have votes in the election to qualify for this list. Exception is made for those few candidates whose parties lost ballot status for additional runs.
History
19th century
- Lydia Maria Child and Lucretia Mott received one vote apiece for president at the 1847 convention of the Liberty League, a caucus of the abolitionist Liberty Party. Mott was a candidate for vice president at the rump Liberty Party's 1848 convention, where she finished fifth out of a field of nine candidates.
- Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to formally run for president. She announced her candidacy in a letter to the New York Herald and was nominated by the national convention of the Equal Rights Party for the 1872 election. Frederick Douglass was nominated for vice president by the convention, but took no part in Woodhull's campaign. Only 33 at the time of the election, she was thus ineligible to serve as president due to the age requirement established by the United States Constitution. Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections records no votes for Woodhull in any state.
- Belva Ann Lockwood was twice a candidate for president, in 1884 and 1888. In 1884, she was nominated by the national convention of the Equal Rights Party, with Marietta Stow for vice president. In a petition to the United States Congress, Lockwood claimed to have received 4,149 votes in six states; she further alleged that election officials in Pennsylvania had destroyed ballots bearing her name. The members of the electoral college from Indiana, after voting for Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks as pledged, cast a ceremonial "complimentary vote" for Lockwood and Stow.
20th century
- Kate Richards O'Hare sought the vice presidential nomination of the Socialist Party in 1916 and received 11,388 votes (35.6%) from party members, finishing second behind the eventual nominee, George Ross Kirkpatrick.
- Laura Clay and Cora Wilson Stewart received one vote apiece at the 1920 Democratic National Convention on the 33rd and 36th ballots, respectively. They were the first women voted for as candidates for president at the national convention of a major American political party.
- Marie C. Brehm was the vice presidential candidate of the Prohibition Party in 1924.
- Former Wyoming Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross was a candidate for vice president at the 1928 Democratic National Convention. Her name was mentioned as a potential candidate as early as 1927, and the possibility of her nomination was the subject of serious speculation. Ross was formally nominated at the convention by Mrs. T. S. Oliver of Wyoming, who praised her "honesty, sincerity, and courage;" W. R. Chapman gave the seconding speech. She received 31 votes, finishing third out of a field of eleven candidates.
- Florence Garvin was the vice presidential candidate of the National Greenback Party in 1936.
- Charlotta Bass was the Progressive Party nominee for vice president in 1952. She was the first Black woman nominated for the office by an American political party.
- Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith was a candidate for the Republican Party nomination in 1964, becoming the first woman to seek the nomination of a major party for president. She qualified for the ballot in six state primaries and finished second in the Illinois primary with 25% of the vote. She became the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency at the national convention of a major political party.
- Charlene Mitchell was the first Black woman to run for president and the first to receive valid votes in a general election. She received 1,076 votes in four states (California, Minnesota, Ohio, and Washington) as the nominee of the Communist Party in the 1968 election.
- New York Representative Shirley Chisholm was the first woman to run in the Democratic primary, the first Black candidate to contest the nomination of a major party, and the first such candidate to win a primary. She received the votes of 152 delegates at the 1972 Democratic National Convention, placing fourth in a field of 13 candidates. Her campaign drew support from prominent national feminist and civil rights leaders, including Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, who attempted unsuccessfully to stand as Chisholm delegates in the New York presidential primary.
- Hawaii Representative Patsy Mink was a candidate in the 1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries. She was the first Asian American woman to run for president.
- Tonie Nathan, the Libertarian Party's vice presidential candidate in 1972, was the first woman to receive an electoral vote, via faithless elector Roger MacBride.
- New York Representative Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman nominated for vice president by a major political party. Several figures had suggested the nomination of a female candidate ahead of the 1984 presidential election, including Kathy Bonk, communications director for the National Organization for Women, and Thomas E. Donilon, the national campaign coordinator for the Walter Mondale campaign. Ferraro was selected from a field of potential running mates, including Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Mikulski, and Pat Schroeder. Despite initial enthusiasm following her nomination, the MondaleâÂÂFerarro ticket was defeated in the fall, carrying only Minnesota and Washington, D.C.
- Lenora Fulani became the first woman, and first African American to achieve ballot access and appear on the ballots of all fifty states as a candidate for President. Fulani was the nominee of the New Alliance Party in the 1988 presidential election. Fulani was again a candidate in the 1992 election.
- Winona LaDuke was the vice presidential nominee of the Green Party in 1996 and 2000 elections.
- Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, but withdrew prior to the primaries.
21st century
- Illinois Senator Carol Mosely Braun ran in the 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries. She withdrew from the race on January 15, 2004, four days before the Iowa caucus.
- Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was the second woman nominated for vice president by a major party and the first woman nominated by a Republican National Convention. She and her running mate, Arizona Senator John McCain, lost the 2008 United States presidential election to their Democratic challengers, Illinois Senator Barack Obama and Delaware Senator Joe Biden.
- New York Senator Hillary Clinton became the first woman to appear on the ballot in every state and territory in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Despite narrowly losing the nomination, Clinton won more votes in 2008 than any female primary candidate in American history. Clinton later became the first woman nominated for president by a major party after winning a majority of pledged delegates in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, and was formally nominated by the Democratic National Convention on July 26, 2016. As a major party nominee, Clinton became the first woman to participate in a presidential debate and the first to carry a state in a general election. Clinton became the first woman to win the national popular vote, receiving nearly 66 million ballots to Donald Trump's 63 million, but lost the electoral college and thus the presidency.
- The Green Party has run a female candidate for president four times: Cynthia McKinney in 2008 and Jill Stein in 2012, 2016, and 2024. Stein's 1.5 million votes in 2016 represent the third-largest total for a female presidential candidate in U.S. history as of 2024. Pat LaMarche in 2004, Rosa Clemente in 2008, Cheri Honkala in 2012, and Angela Nicole Walker in 2020 were Green Party candidates for vice president.
- The Party for Socialism and Liberation has nominated a female presidential candidate in every election which the party has contested: Gloria La Riva in 2008, 2016, and 2020; Peta Lindsay in 2012, and Claudia De la Cruz in 2024. (La Riva in 2016 and 2020 and De la Cruz in 2024 were jointly nominated by the Peace and Freedom Party.)
- Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann was a candidate in the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries. On August 13, 2011, she won the Ames Straw Poll with 28.6% of the vote, the first woman to do so. Despite this, she finished sixth in the Iowa caucus and suspended her campaign shortly thereafter, on January 4, 2012.
- Roseanne Barr was a candidate in the 2012 Green Party presidential primaries. She was defeated by Stein, and subsequently ran as the nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party, garnering 67,326 votes.
- Carly Fiorina was a candidate in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries before suspending her campaign on February 10, 2016. On April 27, Texas Senator Ted Cruz announced Fiorina would be his vice presidential running mate in the event he won the Republican nomination; however, Cruz withdrew from the race on May 3 after losing the Indiana primary.
- Faith Spotted Eagle received a faithless electoral vote from Washington in 2016, becoming the first Indigenous American to receive an electoral vote for president.
- Six women ran in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, California Senator Kamala Harris, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, and author Marianne Williamson. All six women subsequently participated in at least one televised debate. Prior to 2020, only five women had ever appeared on a major party's primary debate stage (Chisholm in 1972, Braun in 2004, Bachman in 2012, Clinton in 2008 and 2016, and Fiorina in 2016). The opening night of the first debate, which took place on June 26âÂÂ27, 2019, was a major milestone, as it featured three women: Warren, Klobuchar, and Gabbard; Harris, Gillibrand, and Williamson participated on the second night. This was the first major party presidential primary in which multiple women competed.
- Jo Jorgensen was the Libertarian nominee for president in 2020. She is the first woman to be nominated for president by that party. Jorgensen's 1.9 million votes represent the second-highest total for a female presidential candidate.
- Harris was subsequently the 2020 Democratic vice presidential candidate. She became the first female, Black, and Asian American vice president upon winning the 2020 election, defeating the Republican candidate, incumbent Vice President Mike Pence. Following Joe Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 election, Harris announced her candidacy for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. On July 22, she received enough pledged delegate support to become the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. She later went on be officially nominated by the Democratic National Convention by roll call on August 6, 2024, but lost to former president Donald Trump in the general election.
- Williamson challenged Biden in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Although she did not win pledged delegate support in any contest, her 473,761 votes represented the third-best showing for any candidate, behind Biden and Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips. (Uncommitted delegates received 706,591 votes.) After twice suspending and resuming her campaign, Williamson ended her candidacy for the last time on June 29, 2024, after deciding not to challenge Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
Presidential candidates
Candidates who received electoral college votes
General election candidates by popular vote
This list, sorted by the number of votes received, includes female candidates who have competed for President of the United States in a general election and received over 40,000 votes.
â Popular vote winner
Primary election candidates by popular vote
This list, sorted by the number of votes received, includes female candidates who have sought their party's presidential nomination in at least one primary or caucus and received over 5,000 votes. Note that Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic Party presidential candidate, is not listed because she did not participate in the primaries. <br /> Party nominee
All candidates
Party nominees
Not nominated by party
Candidates who failed to receive their parties' nomination.
Vice presidential candidates
Candidates who received electoral college votes
Elected vice president
General election candidates by popular vote
This list, sorted by the number of votes received, includes female candidates who have run for Vice President of the United States and received over 100,000 votes. Note that the vote for vice president is not separate in the United States and is identical to that for the presidential nominees. <br /> Elected vice president
All candidates
Party nominees
Not nominated by party
See also
Notes
References
External links