California sees itself as a progressive trailblazer on many fronts, but it has never elected a woman governor.

That puts California in the minority of states. More than 50 women have served as governor elsewhere, and 14 states currently have female executives, the most on record, after this year’s inaugurations of Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia.

For a while, it seemed that California was poised to join that list. Former Vice President Kamala Harris would have been a heavy favorite to win this year’s governor’s race, but opted not to run. Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, serving in the same role Gavin Newsom had before he became governor, abandoned her campaign in the early stages.

Katie Porter, a Democratic former congresswoman, is the last prominent woman standing. But with Tuesday’s primary imminent, polls routinely show her hovering around fifth place, and only two candidates will advance to November’s general election.

Women who have served as governor around the country say the reasons that California has never broken that glass ceiling look awfully familiar, suggesting that some of the struggles that female politicians face cross ideological lines. It is also striking, they say, that states with more conservative voters have elected women to their highest office, while California, the trendsetter in other realms, has not.

It is hard to know to what extent gender bias has played a role in California never having elected a woman as governor.

In interviews, many of the governors from elsewhere observed that California is far larger than most states, both in population and geography, so it takes a lot more money and political connections to break through than it does in, say, Vermont. Ms. Harris, with her national profile, would have been in a unique position to have overcome those challenges.

But the women said they also see double standards in California similar to the ones they faced.

Jan Brewer, a Republican who served as Arizona’s governor from 2009 to 2015, said women still face more criticism and scrutiny than men in politics.

“Men say things, and the public says, ‘Yes, it’s the truth,’ but we have to defend it from every direction,” Ms. Brewer, 81, said.

In the California race, Ms. Porter, 52, was among the early favorites last fall until videos showing her snapping at a reporter and a staff member went viral. Several of the former governors interviewed by The New York Times saw the fallout as a prism for the challenges unique to female leaders.

Ms. Brewer recalled facing a similar moment in 2012. Cameras captured her pointing her finger in President Barack Obama’s face on the tarmac in Phoenix during a tense exchange about immigration. That image, too, went viral.

Ms. Brewer said she tried hard to address criticism that she had been aggressive, arguing that she just talks with her hands.

Women in the governor’s office often have to walk that tightrope. Some said they face pressure to show voters they are assertive and powerful, yet get criticized for not being relatable enough or for seeming too domineering, in ways that male politicians do not get judged.

Jane Swift became the first female governor of Massachusetts, ascending by succession after Paul Cellucci stepped down in 2001. She became the first governor to give birth in office when she had twins that year, and she served until 2003.

Ms. Swift, 61, a Republican, distinctly recalls one night when she was driving from Boston to her home in Western Massachusetts and stopped at a convenience store, likely to buy her favorite combo of Diet Mountain Dew and Ruffles potato chips.

The clerk told her that she was much nicer than she appeared on television.

“Would someone ever think that when they saw a male governor?” she wondered.

Bethany Hall-Long, 62, a longtime lieutenant governor of Delaware who served in the state’s top role for two weeks after the governor resigned last year, said she had been following the blowback that Ms. Porter received over the videos. She said women faced a double standard.

“Oftentimes if a woman is tenacious, they can be labeled difficult,” she said. “If a woman is strong, they can be labeled as divisive. But when a woman is collaborative, they can be labeled as weak.”

Kathleen Sebelius, 78, one of three women to serve as governor of Kansas, said she has followed the brouhaha around Ms. Porter’s videos and thought it was a “fair critique” that a man might never have been criticized for doing the same thing.

She vividly remembers a male reporter describing the men vying for governor against her by their job titles or business accomplishments while pointing out that she wore sandals that showed off the nail polish on her toes.

Ms. Sebelius said her press secretary immediately went to the reporter and said, “What is the matter with you? Look at what you wrote.” The reporter, as Ms. Sebelius recalled, apologized and never described her looks again.

Still, Ms. Brewer, the former Arizona governor, believes that Ms. Porter could have done more to defend her public gaffes. Mistakes made by women tend to stick around in the public discourse much longer than they do for men, she said.

“If you make a mistake,” she said, “explain it.”

Ms. Porter did tell supporters in a Zoom call after the videos emerged that she “could have been better in those moments,” but did not explain why she had lost her temper.

Ms. Porter said in an interview this month that California just does not seem to want an everyday, single mom to lead it. Instead, she said, the land of immense wealth, industry titans and Hollywood celebrities wants larger-than-life governors with money and connections.

She pointed to the current governor, Mr. Newsom, who had longstanding political ties in San Francisco through his father’s friendship with the Getty family, and to Jerry Brown, the previous governor, whose father had held the position.

“And Arnold Schwarzenegger was a legit movie star!” she said.

In this year’s race, that pattern may not hold true given that Xavier Becerra, a longtime government official has emerged as a front-runner. His image has little sizzle, and he posted a video of himself shopping at Costco a few weeks ago.

Perhaps he was taking a page from Ms. Porter, who has long painted herself as exceptionally ordinary. A recent ad showed her pushing a grocery cart through the supermarket aisles.

But, she said, Californians are voting this year from a place of fear — of the Trump administration, of artificial intelligence, of soaring prices — and in her view they may not want to take a risk on electing a woman.

“Fear does not always produce a willingness to believe in something you’ve never seen,” she said.

She has a long list of endorsements from women’s groups, including Emily’s List, the California Women’s List and Fund Her, a political action committee that aims to elect progressive women. But some of her critics say the videos were evidence that Ms. Porter was not up to running the country’s most populous state.

Barbara Boxer, a Democrat, never ran for governor but had to campaign several times statewide to win four terms as senator from 1993 to 2017. She thinks that Ms. Porter’s struggles this year are less a matter of a decision by California voters to spurn a woman, and more about the candidate.

Ms. Boxer, 85, said in an interview that the state likely would have elected its first female governor if Ms. Harris had run.

“The one woman who’s running has got anger management problems,” said Ms. Boxer, who endorsed Antonio Villaraigosa, the former Los Angeles mayor, in the race. “We have to put up our best, just like men have to put up their best.”

In other states, female governors have been familiar for decades. Arizona has had the most — five so far — including Ms. Brewer and Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who ran the state from 2003 to 2009. Ms. Napolitano said she treated her gender as inconsequential, both on the campaign trail and while in office.

“I didn’t focus on it, and the media didn’t really focus on it. It was a thing: I was a woman. And the guy I ran against had brown hair, whatever,” she said, laughing.

Ms. Napolitano, 68, who is now a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said she thinks she sidestepped the kind of scrutiny targeted at mothers. It is the kind Ms. Porter might be up against, she noted — who must prove they can both be a mom and run a state.

“They had to show that they could walk and chew gum at the same time in a way that a male candidate wouldn’t have to, and I didn’t have to,” Ms. Napolitano said.

Laurel Rosenhall contributed reporting. Georgia Gee contributed research.