Does the gap between women's and men's turnout decrease when female front-runners enter the electoral arena? In past decades the gender gap in voter turnout has decreased in many national elections, but persists in most sub-national elections. I argue that gender differences in turnout reduce once major parties select female politicians to lead their election campaigns, because female voters are more likely to turn out when a highly visible candidate from their respective group leads the election campaign. This paper estimates the causal effect of female front-runner entry on the gender gap in voter turnout with a differences-in-differences approach and administrative election statistics from German state elections between (1960-2018). Observational survey data from German state selections further identify mechanisms unobservable in the aggregate administrative data. The findings provide quasi-experimental evidence that the gender gap in voter turnout decreases after the entry of female front-runners, in particular among young voters, but only provide weak evidence against a true causal effect of very minor magnitude.