Democrats puzzle over whether a woman will beat Trump

The specter of Mrs. Clinton’s defeat in 2016 still haunts some Democratic officials, voters and activists. There is widespread recognition that women in politics are held to a different standard than men on qualities like likability, and toughness, and that voters have traditionally been more reluctant to elect women as executives than as legislators.

Some women see bias in the excitement surrounding a potential presidential run by Beto O’Rourke, the Texan who energized the left in a losing Senate bid, while Stacey Abrams is not mentioned as a possibility even though she had a much narrower loss for governor of Georgia.

“There’s a real tension,” said Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress and a former policy adviser to Mrs. Clinton. “On one hand, women are leading the resistance and deserve representation. But on the other side, there’s a fear that if misogyny beat Clinton, it can beat other women.”