American National Election Studies (ANES) data from surveys on voting, public opinion and political participation between 1948-1997. Produced jointly with the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (see below).
Columbia Libraries Catalog Call No. JK1967 .A835 1998g on CD-ROM.
CQ Voting and Elections Collection
Integrates data, authoritative analyses, concise explanations, and historical material to provide a research and reference tool on voting and elections in America. From the American voter, to major and minor political parties, to actual races for Congress, the presidency, and governorships, the collection provides context-driven intelligence on the state of elections in America. Chronological coverage varies by office. Presidential coverage begins 1789. Election data can be downloaded.
Cook, Rhodes
United States Presidential Primary Elections, 1968-1996: A Handbook of Election Statistics.
Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, c2000
Columbia Libraries Catalog Call No. R324.73 C773
Dubin, Michael J.
United States Congressional Elections, 1788-1997.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, c1998.
Columbia Libraries Catalog Call No. R328.73 D85
Election data for each Congress, arranged alphabetically by state and congressional district, giving candidate's names, party affiliation, popular vote, and percentage of the vote. Each election ends with a statistical summary, notes, and a bibliography.
Election Data Services
Election Data Services Inc. is a political consulting firm specializing in redistricting, election administration, and the analysis and presentation of census and political data with GIS (geographic information systems). See Election Officials and Voting Equipment Entry.
The Federal Election Commission has downloadable data regarding campaign finance, back to 2008 (for most data sets). See the FEC Disclosure Data Catalog.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
The ICPSR, in which Columbia is a member, advances and expands social and behavioral research, acts as a data steward, and provides training in data access, curation and methods pf analysis for the social science research community. ICPSR maintains a searchable data archive.
iPoll Databank.
The Roper Center's iPoll is a comprehensive, up-to-date source for US nationwide polling on public opinion. A full-text retrieval system, the iPoll online database is organized at the question level, providing the tools to sift through nearly a half million questions asked on national public opinion surveys, 1935 to present. Surveys and exit polls archived in the Roper Catalog were originally gathered by academic, commercial and media survey organizations such as Gallup Organization, Harris Interactive, Pew Research Associates, and many more.
Ragsdale, Lynn
Vital Statistics on the Presidency, Fourth Edition
Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2014
Columbia Libraries Catalog Call No. JK518 .R338 2014
The Record of American Democracy, 1984-1990 (ROAD)
The National Science Foundation supports this aggregate data set on American politics. The Record Of American Democracy (ROAD) data include “election returns, socioeconomic summaries, and demographic measures of the American public at unusually low levels of geographic aggregation.” The project covers every state in the country from 1984 through 1990 (including some off-year elections). One collection of data sets includes every election at and above State House, along with party registration and other variables, in each state for the roughly 170,000 precincts nationwide (about 60 times the number of counties). Another collection has added to these (roughly 30-40) political variables an additional 3,725 variables merged from the 1990 U.S. Census for 47,327 aggregate units (about 15 times the number of counties) about the size one or more cities or towns. These units completely tile the U.S. landmass. This collection also includes geographic boundary files so users can easily draw maps with these data. Also available through IPCSR.
The Rhodes Cook Letter "tracks election results for president, Congress and the nation's governorships - in terms of primaries, general elections, and even special elections when they occur. But each issue goes beyond the basics to provide a distinctive analysis of the American political scene - with texts, maps and a variety of other colorful graphics that seek to put current elections into a broader historical context." (via De Gruyter, only through 2013)
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) administers the biennial Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS), which collects state-by-state data on the administration of federal elections, and researches a variety of issues such as elections in rural areas, election crimes, threat analyses on voting systems, absentee and overseas voting and other issues. EAC also accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, as well as audits the use of HAVA funds.