The Curious Case of Theresa May and the Public That Did Not Rally: Gendered Reactions to Terrorist Attacks Can Cause Slumps Not Bumps

Terrorist attacks routinely produce rallies for incumbent men in the executive office. With scarce cases, there has been little consideration of terrorism’s consequences evaluations sitting women executives. Fusing research on with scholarship politics, we derive a gender-revised framework wherein public will be less inclined to rally around when terrorists attack. A critical case is UK Prime Minister Theresa May, right-leaning security experience. Employing natural experiment, demonstrate that fails after 2017 Manchester Arena Instead, May decrease, sharp declines among those holding negatives views about women. We further show May’s party loses votes areas closer then find support argument multinational test. conclude conventional theory events requires revision: leaders cannot count following major terrorist attacks.