In addition to the excellent coverage @AsteadWesley highlighted in his thread below, I'd like to highlight some pieces on how big a role gender and sexism played in this race.
Last February, as the campaign was just getting started, I wrote about the sexist tropes already coming into play. I wanted to lay out as clearly and specifically as possible how misogyny manifests on the trail. It's often subtle, but still so damaging. nytimes.com/2019/02/11/us/…
At the December debate, the moderators told the candidates to give a "gift" or ask forgiveness. Only the women asked forgiveness — for coming on too strong or being too passionate. 1/2 nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/…
I can't tell you how many texts I got (and sent) about this moment. It was so on the nose. Too on the nose. It felt like a gut punch to pretty much every woman I spoke with, regardless of which candidate they personally supported. 2/2 nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/…
The next debate was after the Sanders-Warren "can a woman win" conflict, and Warren addressed "electability" head-on. Electability, like likability, is deeply gendered, by which I mean it is disproportionately used as a reason not to vote for women. 1/2 nytimes.com/2020/01/14/us/…
Statistically, the idea that women are less "electable" is a myth. But the constant debate can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: I'd love to vote for a woman, but will swing voters in Wisconsin vote for a woman? I'd better not vote for the woman. 2/2 nytimes.com/2020/01/14/us/…
In the debate last month, Warren stopped holding back. Some adjectives I heard: "electric," "exhilarating," "cathartic." I mean, there were three debates last month and I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about, which says something. 1/2 nytimes.com/2020/02/19/us/…
What made that debate so striking, from a gender perspective, was that women aren't "supposed" to speak the way Warren spoke. They're not supposed to do it because of double standards: passion is often read as anger and real anger is often read as hysteria nytimes.com/2020/02/19/us/…
Warren WAS angry in that debate. She chose not to hide it, as the usual calculations of "what's politically safe for women" would have urged. nytimes.com/2020/02/19/us/…
If you're a woman, regardless of whether you supported Warren, chances are you understand why that debate was so cathartic for so many. Even if you totally disagreed with her on policy, you knew the feeling of suppressing your anger in order to be taken seriously.
Now that this race is pretty much down to two white men (Tulsi Gabbard is still running, but she only has one delegate), I've been thinking about something @DebbieWalsh58 told me for that double standards piece I did last year. nytimes.com/2019/02/11/us/…
Having six women in the race, she said, would "give women who run for office at every level more leeway, and a path to navigate that may be not quite so narrow." nytimes.com/2019/02/11/us/… 
I think that's true. A woman is not going to be president this time, but the next woman who runs will have so many examples to draw from.
She could run the way Kamala Harris did, or Kirsten Gillibrand did, or Amy Klobuchar did, or Elizabeth Warren did. Or another way entirely!
She could talk openly about sexism. She could be angry on a debate stage. Maybe she could even give a gift instead of asking forgiveness.
She could talk openly about sexism. She could be angry on a debate stage. Maybe she could even give a gift instead of asking forgiveness.
