Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics or culture.
Japan is expected to soon break ground that the United States has so far left intact. By mid-October, the East Asian country could be led by a woman.
Sanae Takaichi was elected on Oct. 4 to lead the Liberal Democratic Party, the right-wing governing party of Japan’s coalition government. For Takaichi to replace current Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is resigning, she will need to win a vote in the country’s legislature. That is expected to happen, but some hurdles remain.
If Takaichi becomes the next prime minister, Japan would become the 50th democracy led by a woman since the end of World War II. Meanwhile, the U.S. would then become one of only 20 that has kept women out of national leadership.
Daily Kos reviewed data from the Council on Foreign Relations on the history of elected or appointed female heads of state and government, among United Nations member nations, since the beginning of 1946. Daily Kos updated CFR’s data, which dated to Aug. 7, to be current as of this past Tuesday. Our analysis focuses only on nations that rank as a “flawed democracy” or better on the Economist Intelligence Group’s 2024 democracy index.
The U.S. position is even more stark among its economic peers, according to Daily Kos’ analysis.
Since the end of World War II, 35 high-income democracies—defined by the World Bank as those with a gross national income of at least $13,935 per capita—have had a female head of state or government. If Takaichi ascends to the role of prime minister, Japan would become the 36th, leaving the U.S. as one of just eight led exclusively by men since 1946.
But what exactly is holding the U.S. back?
Sexism is no doubt a big reason. Forty percent of voters say they personally know someone who wouldn’t vote for a female presidential candidate, and 18% openly admit they themselves aren’t open to casting their presidential vote for a qualified woman. Nearly 80% of Americans blame gender discrimination for why there have been fewer women than men in higher office.
Society also encourages men more than women to seek higher office. And even when women do run, their candidacies face harsher media coverage. One analysis of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary discovered that female candidates suffered more gendered and even racialized media coverage than their male counterparts did, with coverage often criticizing the women for lacking “warmth.” Kamala Harris, last year’s Democratic nominee for president, faced the same misogynistic bias.
But sexism isn’t unique to America. As of early August, only 26 of 193 U.N. member nations had a female head of state or government, according to CFR. And only six had a national legislature composed of at least 50% women.
In some ways, the U.S. has actually been more inclusive than other democracies. A 2025 report by U.N. Women, the United Nations’ agency that promotes global gender equality, found the U.S. with a higher share of women in top governmental positions (40%) than Japan had (10%). The U.S. was also ahead of New Zealand (35%), Poland (35%), Denmark (30%), and other democracies that have had a female head of state or government.
Another key reason why America’s glass ceiling is intact is our electoral process itself.
Many countries that have had female leaders use a parliamentary system, unlike the U.S., which has a presidential system. Under a typical parliamentary system, the head of government is usually the leader of the largest party in the government’s lower house, which is directly elected by voters.
Consider Canada. In 1993, Kim Campbell became the nation’s first—and so far only—female prime minister. But Canadians didn’t directly elect her to the role in the way Americans elect their president. Instead, she won a much smaller vote at her party’s leadership convention, and because her Progressive Conservative Party was the governing party of Canada, she became prime minister. This is a somewhat similar process to how Takaichi is set to become Japan’s first female prime minister.
Sanae Takaichi, the newly elected leader of Japan's ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, leaves the party’s headquarters in Tokyo on Oct. 10.
However, America chooses its head of government via voting in a presidential election. This likely introduces a distinct level of scrutiny for candidates that isn’t faced in many other democracies that have had a female leader.
And unlike in many other countries, if President Donald Trump were to pass away or resign or be removed from office, the Republican Party would not get together and vote on his replacement. Instead, Vice President JD Vance would immediately be sworn in. (God help us.)
If the U.S. had a parliamentary system, our head of government might be chosen by the House of Representatives, which would surely be much larger. For instance, the U.K.’s House of Commons has 650 seats for a national population of about 69.3 million—or one seat for every 107,000 people or so. Give the U.S. that same ratio, and the House would have over 3,200 seats. It currently has 435.
A parliamentary system in the U.S. would no doubt mean more parties—and very possibly a female head of government. In fact, if the leader of the House functioned as the U.S. president, Nancy Pelosi would’ve broken the glass ceiling in 2007.
Nevertheless, another quirk of our current system has already stood in the way of the nation getting a female leader: the Electoral College. If the nation elected its president by a simple national popular vote, Hillary Clinton would have become president. In 2016, she beat Trump in the popular vote by over 2.8 million votes.
Despite all of this, the U.S. is trending in the right direction. The number of women serving in Congress has rapidly increased over the past 30 years. And it’s very likely the momentum will eventually, maybe even in three short years, propel a woman into the Oval Office.
Any updates?
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Pennsylvania Democrats may soon tap a better man than Democratic Sen. John Fetterman. Since taking office, Fetterman has undergone a startling political shift, drifting to the right of the voters who pushed him into office—and new polling suggests he will face hard headwinds in his 2028 Democratic primary, should he choose to run again. A recent Quinnipiac University poll finds that just 33% of state Democrats approve of the job he’s doing, while 54% disapprove. And while Republicans widely approve of the Democratic senator—62% approve, 21% disapprove—Keystone State Republicans can’t vote in Democratic primaries. And if Fetterman were to endeavor an independent run at retaining his seat, it’s unlikely Republican voters will back him over an actual Republican.
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As Trump needlessly deploys troops to Democrat-run cities, most of the American public doesn’t want the National Guard involved in controlling local crime. Fifty-three percent think local police departments would better address crime in their states, while just 6% think the National Guard would, according to YouGov. Another 28% think local police and the National Guard would do equally well.
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Conservative misinformation, is there anything it can’t do? Just under half of Republicans (42%) falsely believe that undocumented immigrants are eligible to receive Medicaid, according to new YouGov polling. Only 29% of Republicans know undocumented immigrants are ineligible.
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We already know Americans hate Trump’s tariffs, but new data finds that it’s changing their shopping habits. About 1 in 3 Americans who recently shopped secondhand say they’re doing so because of the tariffs, according to Morning Consult. Ironically for Trump, secondhand shopping is one way to combat the climate crisis, which he claims is a con job and a hoax.
Vibe check
The United States might soon lose its measles-free status, according to a United Nations agency on public health, as outbreaks continue to spread across the nation.
At least 1,563 measles cases have been reported so far in 2025, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data published on Wednesday. That makes for the most yearly cases since 1992, which was soon after major health organizations first started recommending a second dose of the vaccine to all children.
Between 2023 and 2024, the weekly average number of cases was just 3.3. In 2025, it’s 39.0.
Measles causes a blotchy rash and a high fever, along with a cough, a runny nose, and other symptoms. It is highly contagious and bears the most threat to children and those with compromised immune systems. Measles vaccination is estimated to have saved over 93 million lives across the world between 1974 and 2024.
But now vaccination rates are falling, cases have climbed this year, and at least three people have died.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. must be thrilled.
