GREENVILLE, S.C. — Some people whisper it, some apologize for it, and some are very careful to mention their neighbors — their neighbors would be the ones to ask.

“Do you really think a woman could be elected president?”

In ways subtle and overt, Democrats keep hearing that same question, even days after debates where Senator Kamala Harris commanded the stage and Senator Elizabeth Warren dominated the policy discussion.

It’s the anxiety of a party still carrying the scars of its 2016 defeat.

“My colleagues, some have said that to me, and I just have to push back and say, ‘Wait just a minute,’” said Representative Barbara Lee of California, who worked as a young organizer for former Representative Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 presidential bid. “I’m just quite frankly shocked to still hear them in 2019.”

Three years after nominating the first woman in history to head a presidential ticket, nearly six months after a wave of energized women swept Democrats into power in the House, and as a record number of women run for president, the party finds itself grappling with the strangely enduring question of the electability of women — and with the challenge for the candidates of refuting it before it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.