Greuel said that the difference was likely generational. Twenty years ago, women voted for women just because they were women. Now older women still see the importance of supporting their fellow females, but younger women often do not.

“Women 25, 30, 35 years old say, ‘We have achieved parity. Look at all the things that have happened.’ Then they get into their own careers a little bit more, and they look around and see the obstacles and say, ‘Wait a minute, we see something different going on here.”’

But one consultant, John Shallman, who advised Greuel in Los Angeles, said that female candidates just have more to think about. They can’t come off too harshly without fear of being labeled bitchy or shrewish, and they can’t pivot in the other direction for fear of being labeled soft. And he too agreed that women were no more likely to support a fellow female.

“Women often times judge other women more harshly than men do,” he said. “I don’t have an answer for why that is.  I think you need a psycho-political analysis who can understand why women make that decision.”

Quinn has at times seemed hamstrung about how to address the issue of gender. When a New York Times article described her hair-trigger temper, her camp protested that a male candidate would never get called out for raising her voice. When she doesn’t want to answer a question, she will often coyly respond, “Now, a girl can’t give away all of her secrets, can she?”