What matters in any presidential election is who can win the 270 electoral college votes needed to go to the White House. On its face, the electability of a presidential candidate refers to their likelihood of securing those 270 votes. But scratch the surface, and you will find a deeper implication of what it means to be electable.
Electability, in today’s vernacular, is the conveniently nebulous term for pattern-matching. That is, we match the projections of who will win based on who has won.
Throughout U.S. history, electability means white and male. Why? Because there’s a narrative at play: the narrative of electability. Not only is this narrative false, it threatens our economic and democratic stability.