Research Guides: *Politics: Elections

The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior
Location: Available online
Published: 2010
The Politics of Electoral Systems
Location: Available online
Published: 2005
How to Research Elections by Martin & Goehlert
Location: Bates Reference Z7164.R4 M37 2000
Guide to U. S. Elections
Location: Available online
Published: 2009

U.S. Elections Data

Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
National and state-level results for presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial elections. Can be downloaded via Data Planet.
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Electoral college votes, 1789-present, general election popular vote counts by state, 1824-present; voter turnout by state, 1960-present, presidential primary results by state, 2000-2008, senatorial election results by state, 1990-present.
County-Level Presidential General Election Results for 2008 - 2020
In CSV format.

Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Maps election results from 1912 to the present, by state or county.

MIT Election Lab Data
Presidential returns by state and county, 1976-2016 and precinct-level returns for 2016.
United States Historical Election Returns Series (ICPSR)
Historical election data 1788-1990. Requires statistical software.
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Contains several datasets of county- and state-level returns for all elections to the offices of president, governor, United States senator, and United States representative.
Harvard Election Data Archive
Precinct-level results for as many U.S. elections as possible, federal or state, 2000-2012.
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Precint-level data are linked to GIS boundary files of voting tabulation districts. These can be linked to 2000 and 2010 census blocks.
Daily Kos Elections - Presidential Results by Congressional District, 2008-2020
Percentage of votes for presidential candidate.
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Necessarily an approximation for districts that cross county lines. See link to Swing State Project for 2000-2008 results.
U.S. Elections Project - Voter Turnout
National and state turnout rates in general elections.
Maine Election Results
From 2008 onward. 1990-2013 returns are available via the Internet Archive.
State Legislative Election Returns, 1967-2010
1967-2016 also available.
House Primary Election Results (1956-2010)

Center for Responsive Politics - OpenSecrets.org
Select Politicians & Elections to search donors, find fundraising by candidate, outside spending, and personal finances, 2004-present. Select Influence & Lobbying for contributions by PACs, 527 organizations, and lobbyists, 1998-present.
Follow the Money
Aggregating from state disclosure agencies, the National Institute on Money in State Politics provides access to campaign contribution data for candidates in state-level elections.
Vote Smart
Campaign funding, interest group ratings, positions, and votes of U.S. politicians.

National Conference of State Legislatures This link opens in a new window
See Campaign Finance Legislation Databases 1999-2013, 2014, and 2015 onward.

Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices
Contributions to and expenditures of political candidates, political action committees, ballot question committees, and political party committees in Maine.

iPOLL This link opens in a new window
U.S. national-level opinion polls; a subset of the Roper Center Public Opinion Archive searchable by text of question.
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research This link opens in a new window
Public opinion poll data archive, U.S. and some international. Time period: 1930s-present.

American National Election Studies
Demographic and opinion time series data from election year surveys, 1948-present.
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These studies allow researchers to explore the relationship between demographics, socioeconomics, party affiliation, and electoral participation, among other variables. Available for download to SPSS or Stata, or for online analysis using SDA.
Voting and Registration, U.S. Census Bureau
Data on reported voting and registration, method of voting, and reasons for not voting, by various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics at national level for election years, 1964-present.
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Does not provide estimates of partisanship, such as what candidate a voter supported or what political party a voter aligned themselves with.
Understanding America Study
Panel study from USC. Must register to download.
Cooperative Congressional Election Study
36,500 person national survey on Congressional elections.
National Annenberg Election Survey
VOTER Survey (Views of the Electorate Research Survey)
Publication dates: 2016-2020.

IFES Election Guide
Results and turnout of recent national elections.
Global Database on Elections and Democracy
Voter turnout and voting age population statistics, types of electoral systems and models of electoral management, and more in-depth information on national practices.

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) This link opens in a new window
Archived data sets from national election studies around the world may be found in ICPSR, the largest data archive. Search for your country of interest and "election study." Most data sets available for download in SPSS, SAS, or Stata formats.

Constituency-Level Elections Archive
A repository of detailed election results at the constituency level for lower house legislative elections from around the world.
PARLINE
Parliamentary elections around the world.
Manifesto Project
Documents from political parties, 1945 to present.