Research Guides: Campaigns & Elections: Election Statistics & Data

2020 Election Resources

The Election Influence Operations Playbook
From Defending Digital Democracy, this playbook includes guides that aim to provide election officials with resources and recommendations on how to navigate information threats targeting elections. It offers an introduction to Election Influence Operations: what they are, how they work, and why they can impact our elections. It also includes recommendations for reporting, responding and countering mis- and disinformation incidents around elections.
Ballotpedia
Provides information on candidates including their records on major issues and changes in their campaign staff.
FactCheck.org
Monitoring of the factual accuracy of statements by presidential candidates.
Federal Election Commission - Presidential Campaign Map
Search presidential data such as money raised, money spent, cash on hand and debt.
Gallup
Public opinion polls and studies
National Journal (Harvard Login)
Data, charts, and analysis
OpenSecrets.org
Fundraising and financial disclosure information.
Pew Research Center
Public opinion polls and studies
Politico Pro (Harvard Login)
Articles and analysis

Federal Election Statistics & Data - Harvard Databases

CQ Voting & Elections Collection (Harvard Login)
Historical data on elections (presidential, congressional and gubernatorial), campaign finances, voter demographics, voter turnout, and political parties.

Expert analysis, demographics, and data.

Dave Leip Election Data (Harvard Login)
Presidential county-level election results for 1948-2016.
U.S. Presidential Primary election results results for 2000-2016.
U.S. President general county level voter registration and turnout data for 1992-2018.
U.S. House of Representatives results for 1992-2018.
U.S. Senate results for 1990-2018.
Governor General County election data results for 1990-2018

Google Custom Search for Campaigns & Elections

Search the content of all free websites listed in this research guide. Content in Harvard subscription databases and print books are not included.

Federal Election Statistics & Data - Free Resources

D3P's State by State Election Database
Dataset from Defending Digital Democracy detailing the most relevant state-specific factors that describe the election process and may affect timelines for tabulating and reporting election results. This data set currently provides information on and analysis for state-specific regulations regarding: getting a ballot, return timing for ballots, ease of voting by mail factors, processing, counting, and curing mail-in ballots, early voting, provisional ballots, and canvassing and certifying results.
Partisan Segregation Project
Maps showing the segregation between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. for metropolitan areas and Congressional Districts. State voterfiles were used to map the location of every individual voter in order to calculate the segregation. Read the working paper for this project to learn more.
270toWin
Maps of electoral college votes back to 1789. Also includes voting history and trends by state.
American Presidency Project: Presidential Elections Data
Presidential election data from 1789-present.
Election Statistics
Official state-by-state vote counts in federal elections from 1920 through 2018 from the U.S. House of Representatives.
Electoral College Historical Election Votes
View the electoral votes, popular votes, electors, and certificates of past presidential elections.
Harvard Election Data Archive
Core data for the archive are state, county and district level election returns for all recent state and federal elections in the United States.
A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787-1825
Data from America's earliest elections, between 1787 and 1825. The electoral data from the site covers offices from the United States president down to local offices such as alderman and county coroner.
Voting America: United States Politics, 1840-2008
Animated maps of presidential election data at the county level across time (actual returns, margin of victory, party strength, population, voter turnout).

Election Turnout

U.S. Election Assistance Commission
The EAC studies election administration issues. EAC datasets for selected reports are available for download.
U.S. Elections Project
Provide timely and accurate election statistics, electoral laws, research reports, and other useful information regarding the United States electoral system with a focus on voting turnout.
Voting and Registration
Information on reported voting and registration by various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics is collected for the nation in November of Congressional and Presidential election years in the United States Census Bureau Current Population Survey.

Polls & Surveys

Pew Research Center - Elections & Campaigns
Polls and studies back to 2002.
Gallup - Politics
Polls and studies related to U.S. politics.

Roper Center for Public Opinion (Harvard Login)
Includes the iPOLL Databank, a comprehensive, up-to-date resource for US public opinion poll data. Also, includes information about presidential and congressional election data including approval ratings.

The Roper Center for Public Opinion provides access to summary-level (aggregate) and micro-level (raw) public opinion data. While the data collection focuses strongly on United States public opinion, it also includes growing collections of (micro-level) European, Latin American (Latin American Databank) and Japanese (JPOLL) polls. The data archive (micro-level data) is searchable by keyword, date, and survey organization. The iPOLL database (summary-level data) is searchable by keyword, subject /or survey organization and survey sponsor; it provides question and response level data. The Roper Center resources require users to set up individual accounts in order to gain access to the data.

Cooperative Congressional Election Study
The CCES is a 50,000+ person national stratified sample survey administered by YouGov. Half of the questionnaire consists of Common Content asked of all 50,000+ people, and half of the questionnaire consists of Team Content designed by each individual participating team and asked of a subset of 1,000 people. In addition, several teams may pool their resources to create Group Content.
2016 Fox News Exit Polls
Find polls broken up by state and various demographics.
2016 CNN Exit Polls
Polls can be broken down by state and various demographics.
American National Election Studies
ANES provides data on voting, public opinion, and political participation. Free registration is required to view and download data.
Electoral Integrity Project
A collaboration between Harvard & Sidney University researchers, this survey gathers data from 1,429 domestic and international election experts on the integrity of elections. The Year in Election 2014 data set includes 127 national parliamentary and presidential contests held from 1 July 2012 to 31 December 2014 in 107 nations.
National Annenberg Election Survey
The NAES examines political attitudes about candidates, issues and the traits Americans want in a president. It also looks at the effects of media exposure through campaign commercials and news from radio, television and newspapers and it measures the effects of other kinds of political communication, from conversations at home and on the job to various efforts by campaigns to influence potential voters. Surveys have been completed for the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections. Researchers can request access to this data at https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/data-access/.
PollingReport
Aggregates polling data from dozens of prominent pollsters.
Real Clear Politics
Aggregates coverage of US National and State politics.

State & Local Data

Individual Board of Elections or Department of State websites can be excellent sources for the election results. These results can include general and primary elections for state and federal offices as well as municipal election data. County and city websites and public libraries should also be checked for results of local elections.

For Massachusetts:

Massachusetts Election Statistics Online: a searchable database of Massachusetts historical election information contained in Public Document 43.
Massachusetts Elections Division