Lloyd Green took exception to a recent article of mine in which I expressed skepticism about whether Republicans could or must reduce the gender gap in politics. He has some ideas, like running more female candidates. The trouble is that he hasn’t bothered to look up any data. I respond here:

I’m all for running good candidates and female candidates. But neither step is going to do much to address the gender gap. Let’s calculate Republicans’ gender gap as the percentage of men who vote for them minus the percentage of women who do. In 2010, Sharron Angle had the same gender gap as Rob Portman (7 points), Carly Fiorina had the same one as Ron Johnson (8), and Kelly Ayotte had the same one as Pat Toomey (10). Choosing female nominees doesn’t seem to alter the fact that the Republican Party is more attractive to men than women.