LibGuides: Political Science: Data & Statistics

About Datasets

Datasets are collections of numeric data that can be analyzed using specialized software such as Stata, SPSS, or R.

Datasets marked with a blue lock must be accessed from either on the UC San Diego campus ethernet, UCSD-PROTECED wifi, or else via the VPN.

Put some thought into choosing your search terms and consider synonyms or alternative terms. AND, OR, and NOT can be used to combine or exclude search terms. Check the subject terms listed on your results for additional words to search.

Most databases have a help link. The help screens will usually explain how to best search for variables.

Top Political & Social Science Data Resources

Google Dataset Search
The Quality of Government Institute - QoG Datasets
The flagship datasest is the QoG Standard Dataset, which is available in both cross-section and time-series. The QoG Basic Dataset is easier to use, offering the most used and the most qualitative variables in terms of data from the QoG Standard Dataset. The QoG OECD covers countries who are members of the OECD. The EU Regional Data consists of approximately 450 variables from Eurostat and other sources. The QoG Expert Survey is a dataset based on our survey of experts on public administration around the world.

See codebook for comprehensive list of links to political science datasets on almost any political topic you can think of.
more...less...
Data Sources:
Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions Dataset
AidData v. 2.1
Archigos. A Data Base on Leaders 1875 - 2004.
Autocratic Regime Data
Bertelsmann Transformation Index
Boix-Miller-Rosato Dichotomous Coding of Democracy, Version 2.0
Centripetal Democratic Governance
Characteristics of National Constitutions
Civil Society Organizations
Classification of Political Regimes
Comparative Political Data Set
Comparative Political Parties Dataset
Conntestation and Inclusiveness, 1950-2000
Corruption Perceptions Database
Country Ruggedness and Geographical Data
Country Statistical Profiles
CSES dataset
Data from Freedom Rising by Christian Welzel
Data used in the article "The Quality of Government"
Database of Political Institutions
Dataset for Information and Accountability Transparency
Democratic Electoral Systems Around the World 1946-2011
Economic Freedom of the World Dataset
Educational Attainment Dataset
Electoral Integrity Project (Version 3.5)
Electoral Systems and the Personal Vote
Environmental Performance Data
Environmental Treaties and Resource Indicators
ESS1-6, European Social Survey - Cumulative File Rounds 1-6
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country
Ethnolinguistic Fractionalization Indices, 1961 and 1985
Eurostat Datasets
Event History Coding of Democratic Breakdowns
Expanded Trade and GDP Data
FAO Statistics
Fractionalisation
Fragile States Index
Freedom of the World
Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 Data
Global Competitiveness Report
Global Corruption Barometer
Global Educational Attainment 1970-2015
Global Footprint Data
Global Integrity Report - Data
Global Terrorism Index
Governance Report Indicators. Public
Opinion Data
Hertie Governance Indicators 2014. The Indexes dataset
HRV Transparency Project
Human Development Report
ICRG Indicator of Quality of Government
IDA Resource Allocation Index (IRAI)
Index of African Governance
Index of Economic Freedom
Institutional Quality Dataset
Institutions and Elections Project Data
International IDEA Unified Database
Inter-Parliamentary Union Data
KOF Index of Globalization
Luxembourg Income Study Database and the Luxembourg Wealth Study Database
Maddison Project Database
Major Episodes of Political Violence
Dataset
Measures of Democracy 1810-2012
Measuring Income Inequality Database
Memberships in Conventional Intergovernmental Organizations Dataset
National Accounts Main Aggregates Database
National Average Happiness
National Elections Across Democracy and Autocracy
Natural Resource Management Index Data
New Data on Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions
Oil and Gas Data, 1932-2014
Penn World Table
Pippa Norris. 2009. Democracy Time-series Dataset
Political Terror Scale
Polity IV Annual Time-Series, 1800-2014
Press Freedom
Red List of Threatened Species (version 2015.4)
Religion and State Project Constitutions Dataset and World Religion Dataset National Religion Dataset
Rule of Law Index
Sea Around Us Project Data
Settler Mortality
Shadow Economies: Model Based estimates
Social Citizenship Indicator Programme Database
Social Justice Index
State Antiquity Index
State Fragility Index and Matrix
Sustainable Governance Indicators
The Authoritarian Regime Dataset
The Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Dataset
The Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset
The Economic Effects of Constitutions
The Economist Intelligence Unit's index of democracy
The ICTD Government Revenue Dataset
The ICTWSS database
The Logic of Political Survival Data Source
The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades Dataset
The Ocean Health Index Data
The Parliamentary Powers Index
The Political Constraints Data
The QoG Expert-Survey
The World Top Incomes Database
The Worldwide Governance Indicators
UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
Unified Democracy Scores
Varieties of Democracy Dataset
World Development Indicators
World Economic Outlook Database
World Values Survey Dataset and European Values Studies dataset
Dataverse (Harvard)
Access the world's largest collection of social science research data here by searching across or browsing through one of the virtual data archives (called "dataverses") listed below. Data is uploaded by researchers from around the world.

DataCite
Search for datasets across over 1000 different major data centers and repositories including ICPSR, Harvard Dataverse, Data-Planet, the California Digital Library, Figshare, Dryad, the Center for Open Science, UC San Diego Library Digital Collections, etc.
Sage Data (formerly Data-Planet)
Provides easy access to statistical data. Data is downloadable in Excel and CSV, and shapefiles when multiple geographies are covered. Sources include: Bombay Stock Exchange, British Bankers' Association, Chicago Board Options, Exchange, China Data Center, D&B (Dun & Bradstreet), Dave Leip's Atlas of US Presidential Elections, Defense Manpower Data Center, Deutsche Börse Group, Dow Jones, Easy Analytic Software Inc. (EASI), Eurostat, FTSE Group, HSI Services Limited (Hong Kong), International Monetary Fund, London Bullion Market Association , London Platinum & Palladium Market, NASDAQ OMX Group, National Bureau of Economic Research, Nikkei, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Standard & Poor's, World Bank, World Resource Institute, Xignite, and many US Federal agencies. See the Data-Planet Libguide for more detail.
PolicyMap
PolicyMap is a U.S. national data and mapping tool that combines a curated, comprehensive geographic data library with simple, robust mapping and analytics tools. University faculty, researchers, and students use it to create maps of up to five layers, export trend charts with key benchmarks, download data for use in other tools, generate on-the-fly reports and upload your own data to view it with ours.
ProQuest Statistical Insight
1973-present. Huge database of citations to statistical publications from U.S. federal and state governments, international agencies, nonprofit and educational institutions, and private publishers including trade and industry groups. Full text of the publication or report is often included, and many tables are downloadable in Excel. Particularly good for demographic and country-level information. Previous name Statistical Universe.
ProQuest Statistical Abstracts of the World
A collection of the statistical abstracts of various countries, both individually searchable and cross searchable. These statistical abstracts are generally issued by the national statistical offices of foreign governments and contain country-level data not easily found elsewhere. Global and regional statistical compendia issued by international organizations and research firms are also included.
Statistical Abstract of the United States, ProQuest (2013- )
Authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States. The online version includes monthly updates to tables. This database replaces the previously-free Census Bureau publication (1878-2012). It uses many of the same, along with additional, data sources as the earlier editions.
Census data
A platform to access demographic and economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Statistics collected by the Census Department:
American Community Survey
American Housing Survey
Annual Surveys of Governments
Census of Governments
Annual Economic Surveys
Decennial Census
Economic Census
Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Tabulation
Population Estimates Program
Puerto Rico Community Survey
Social Explorer
1790-present. This site combines data from the U.S. Census of Population and Housing & the American Community Survey (ACS) with a user friendly interface, allowing the creation of maps & statistical tables. Census Tract boundaries are available back to 1940. Now also includes data on U.S. elections, business pattern, environmental summary, health, religion, and crime; the UK and Canadian censuses; Irish religious data; World Development Indicators, and EuroStat.
SimplyAnalytics
SimplyAnalytics is a web-based mapping application that lets users quickly create professional-quality thematic maps and reports using demographic, business, and marketing data for the United States. Access limited to 5 simultaneous users. Try again later if refused. Includes EASI/MediaMark Research Incorporated (MRI) and Simmons LOCAL data packages. (formerly known as SimplyMap).

Population Reference Bureau
A database with hundreds of variables for the US and the world.

DataCite
Search for datasets across over 1000 different major data centers and repositories including ICPSR, Harvard Dataverse, Data-Planet, the California Digital Library, Figshare, Dryad, the Center for Open Science, UC San Diego Library Digital Collections, etc.

Dataverse (Harvard)
Access the world's largest collection of social science research data here by searching across or browsing through one of the virtual data archives (called "dataverses") listed below. Data is uploaded by researchers from around the world.
UC San Diego Social Sciences Data Collection
Miscellaneous datasets purchased for the UC San Diego community. Includes:
Data on Terrorist Suspects (DOTS)
Field (California) Poll, 1956 - [Latest Release]
International Country Risk Guide: Table 3B: Political Risk Points by Component
International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE), 1968 - [most recent]
Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) 1978-2003 [Repository Data]
POLIDATA Presidential Results by Congressional District (PRCD)

ICPSR Data Archive
The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. World's largest archive of social science data. Election data, opinion polls, more. Special collections on Health, Education, Aging, Crime, Substance Abuse. Raw data; no tables. To download data, create a personal account using your ucsd.edu email address while accessing the database from a UC San Diego computer, UCSD-PROTECTED wireless, or the VPN.
Data Citation Index
Indexes research data, including data studies and data sets, and links them to the scientific literature to track data citation. Part of Web of Science.

re3data.org
Registry of research data repositories
Google Dataset Search

International Statistics & Comparative Datasets

The Quality of Government Institute - QoG Datasets
The flagship datasest is the QoG Standard Dataset, which is available in both cross-section and time-series. The QoG Basic Dataset is easier to use, offering the most used and the most qualitative variables in terms of data from the QoG Standard Dataset. The QoG OECD covers countries who are members of the OECD. The EU Regional Data consists of approximately 450 variables from Eurostat and other sources. The QoG Expert Survey is a dataset based on our survey of experts on public administration around the world.

See codebook for comprehensive list of links to political science datasets on almost any political topic you can think of.
more...less...
Data Sources:
Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions Dataset
AidData v. 2.1
Archigos. A Data Base on Leaders 1875 - 2004.
Autocratic Regime Data
Bertelsmann Transformation Index
Boix-Miller-Rosato Dichotomous Coding of Democracy, Version 2.0
Centripetal Democratic Governance
Characteristics of National Constitutions
Civil Society Organizations
Classification of Political Regimes
Comparative Political Data Set
Comparative Political Parties Dataset
Conntestation and Inclusiveness, 1950-2000
Corruption Perceptions Database
Country Ruggedness and Geographical Data
Country Statistical Profiles
CSES dataset
Data from Freedom Rising by Christian Welzel
Data used in the article "The Quality of Government"
Database of Political Institutions
Dataset for Information and Accountability Transparency
Democratic Electoral Systems Around the World 1946-2011
Economic Freedom of the World Dataset
Educational Attainment Dataset
Electoral Integrity Project (Version 3.5)
Electoral Systems and the Personal Vote
Environmental Performance Data
Environmental Treaties and Resource Indicators
ESS1-6, European Social Survey - Cumulative File Rounds 1-6
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country
Ethnolinguistic Fractionalization Indices, 1961 and 1985
Eurostat Datasets
Event History Coding of Democratic Breakdowns
Expanded Trade and GDP Data
FAO Statistics
Fractionalisation
Fragile States Index
Freedom of the World
Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 Data
Global Competitiveness Report
Global Corruption Barometer
Global Educational Attainment 1970-2015
Global Footprint Data
Global Integrity Report - Data
Global Terrorism Index
Governance Report Indicators. Public
Opinion Data
Hertie Governance Indicators 2014. The Indexes dataset
HRV Transparency Project
Human Development Report
ICRG Indicator of Quality of Government
IDA Resource Allocation Index (IRAI)
Index of African Governance
Index of Economic Freedom
Institutional Quality Dataset
Institutions and Elections Project Data
International IDEA Unified Database
Inter-Parliamentary Union Data
KOF Index of Globalization
Luxembourg Income Study Database and the Luxembourg Wealth Study Database
Maddison Project Database
Major Episodes of Political Violence
Dataset
Measures of Democracy 1810-2012
Measuring Income Inequality Database
Memberships in Conventional Intergovernmental Organizations Dataset
National Accounts Main Aggregates Database
National Average Happiness
National Elections Across Democracy and Autocracy
Natural Resource Management Index Data
New Data on Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions
Oil and Gas Data, 1932-2014
Penn World Table
Pippa Norris. 2009. Democracy Time-series Dataset
Political Terror Scale
Polity IV Annual Time-Series, 1800-2014
Press Freedom
Red List of Threatened Species (version 2015.4)
Religion and State Project Constitutions Dataset and World Religion Dataset National Religion Dataset
Rule of Law Index
Sea Around Us Project Data
Settler Mortality
Shadow Economies: Model Based estimates
Social Citizenship Indicator Programme Database
Social Justice Index
State Antiquity Index
State Fragility Index and Matrix
Sustainable Governance Indicators
The Authoritarian Regime Dataset
The Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Dataset
The Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset
The Economic Effects of Constitutions
The Economist Intelligence Unit's index of democracy
The ICTD Government Revenue Dataset
The ICTWSS database
The Logic of Political Survival Data Source
The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades Dataset
The Ocean Health Index Data
The Parliamentary Powers Index
The Political Constraints Data
The QoG Expert-Survey
The World Top Incomes Database
The Worldwide Governance Indicators
UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
Unified Democracy Scores
Varieties of Democracy Dataset
World Development Indicators
World Economic Outlook Database
World Values Survey Dataset and European Values Studies dataset
Comparative Agendas Project: Datasets & Codebooks
The Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) assembles and codes information on the policy processes of governments from around the world.
Data hosted at Institutions Hub from the Centre for Global Economic History
Datasets include: Adjusted state antiquity dataset; Extraction ratio; Government revenues relative to GDP; Latent democracy indicator, 1850-2000; Conflict Catalog (Violent Conflicts 1400 A.D. to the Present in Different Regions of the World); Homicide dataset, 1800-2000.
more...less...
Also external links to
Database of Political Institutions 2010
World Governance Indicators
Comparative Political Datasets I
Comparative Political Datasets II
Comparative Political Datasets III
Polity IV
Democracy and Dictatorship
Vanhanen’s democracy (polyarchy) dataset
State Antiquity (Statehist)
IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) voters turnout database
Judicial Checks and Balances
UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset
UCDP Non-State Conflict Dataset
Correlates of War, Inter-state wars dataset
Correlates of War, Intra-state wars dataset
Economic Freedom of the World
Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts
Geodist
Colonial/Dependency Contiguity, 1816-2002
Transatlantic slave trade
Ethnic, Linguistic and Religious Fractionalization
Religion adherence data
Ethnographic Atlas The Standard Cross-cultural Sample
Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research (INSCR) Data Page
Datasets include:
Armed Conflict and Intervention (ACI) Datasets: Forcibly Displaced Populations; Major Episodes of Political Violence; PITF State Failure Problem Set; High Casualty Terrorist Bombings; Memberships in Conventional Intergovernmental Organizations (CIO)
Polity IV: Regime Authority Characteristics and Transitions Datasets: Polity IV Annual Time-Series; Polity IVd Polity-Case Format; Coups d'Etat
State Fragility Index and Matrix: State Fragility Index and Matrix; State Fragility Index and Matrix, Time-Series Data
Conflict in India Datasets: Crime in India: Riots, Murders and Dacoity; India Sub-National Problem Set
AidData
AidData is a collaborative initiative to provide products and services that promote the dissemination, analysis, and understanding of development finance information. At the core of the AidData program is the AidData web portal, which is a gateway to nearly 1 million records of development finance activities from donors around the world.
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) is a disaggregated data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping project. ACLED collects the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events across Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeastern and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The ACLED team conducts analysis to describe, explore, and test conflict scenarios, and makes both data and analysis open for free use by the public.
Correlates of War datasets
The Correlates of War project collects and disseminates quantitative data in international relations. Datasets include: COW Country Codes; State System Membership; COW War Data; Militarized Interstate Disputes; Militarized Interstate Dispute Locations; National Material Capabilities; World Religion Data; Formal Alliances; Territorial Change; Direct Contiguity; Colonial/Dependency Contiguity; Intergovernmental Organizations; Diplomatic Exchange; Trade.

Cross National Time-Series (CNTS)
The Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive was launched by Arthur S. Banks in the fall of 1968 at the State University of New York at Binghamton. The archive was, in part, the outcome of an effort initiated some years earlier to assemble, in machine readable, longitudinal format, certain of the aggregate data resources of The Statesman's Yearbook, published since 1864. The archive has almost 200 variables and contains data for over 200 country units, with provision for entries from 1815 (excluding the two modern wartime periods, 1914-1918 and 1940-1945)
International Country Risk Guide: Table 3B: Political Risk Points by Component
The ICRG Researcher's Dataset - Table 3B provides annual averages of the 12 components of ICRG's Political Risk Ratings (Table 3B), as published in the International Country Risk Guide since 1984. Average ratings are provided for all countries covered by ICRG from 1984 through the last full calendar year.
International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE), 1968 - [most recent]
The ITERATE project is an attempt to quantify data on the characteristics of transnational terrorist groups, their activities which have international impact, and the environment in which they operate.

Military Intervention Project (MIP) dataset
The Military Intervention Project (MIP) within the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) seeks to solve the puzzle of US foreign military interventions. It is building a new, comprehensive dataset of all US military interventions from 1776 until 2017 to measure the costs, benefits, and unintended consequences of US military involvements abroad.
Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) - Data
- Journal of Peace Research Replication Data
- Replication Data
- PRIO-GRID
- Data on Armed Conflict
- Small Arms Trade Database
- Mapping Arms Data
- Geographical and Resource Datasets
- Data on Governance
- Economic and Socio-Demographic Data
- ACDC Bibliography
SIPRI Databases
Facts on international relations and security trends
SIPRI multilateral peace operations database
SIPRI military expenditure database
SIPRI arms transfers database
SIPRI arms embargoes database
SIPRI national reports database
Status of World Nuclear Forces
Frequently updated estimates from the Federation of American Scientists.
Transparency International research
Corruption Perceptions Index
Global Corruption Barometer
Bribe Payers Index

United States Political Datasets & Statistics

Use these resources to find data and statistics on American politics.

VoxGov
Includes a broad range of official and ephemeral information resources issued by federal agencies, individual officials and candidates, and other organizations from all branches of the U.S. Federal Government, and links that content to publicly accessible government documentation. Includes social media, official media releases, legislation, regulations, and a variety of government documents from Congress and the Executive branches. Textual data can be visualized in word clouds, tree maps, bubble graphs, and terms view graphs. Users who sign up for an account and agree to additional terms of service can download a small number of full documents; researchers and students with non-commercial, academic projects can apply with VoxGov for additional bulk data download credentials.
CQ Voting and Elections Collection
United States election voting reference works with downloadable elections data. Covers the American voter, to major and minor political parties, actual races for Congress, the Presidency, and governorships. Election data can be downloaded in csv or tsv and earliest date of coverage varies by office: President (national summary: 1789; county detail: 1920); Senate (national summary: 1908; county detail: 1968); Governor (national summary: 1824; county detail: 1967); House (national summary: 1824; district detail: 1968). More details in the CQ Libguide
Sage Data (formerly Data-Planet)
Provides easy access to statistical data. Data is downloadable in Excel and CSV, and shapefiles when multiple geographies are covered. Sources include: Bombay Stock Exchange, British Bankers' Association, Chicago Board Options, Exchange, China Data Center, D&B (Dun & Bradstreet), Dave Leip's Atlas of US Presidential Elections, Defense Manpower Data Center, Deutsche Börse Group, Dow Jones, Easy Analytic Software Inc. (EASI), Eurostat, FTSE Group, HSI Services Limited (Hong Kong), International Monetary Fund, London Bullion Market Association , London Platinum & Palladium Market, NASDAQ OMX Group, National Bureau of Economic Research, Nikkei, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Standard & Poor's, World Bank, World Resource Institute, Xignite, and many US Federal agencies. See the Data-Planet Libguide for more detail.

Federal Election Commission election results
Includes Excel files, 2004+. Presidential and Senate by state; House by Congressional District.
GovInfo: Bulk Data
GPO makes select collections available in bulk in a machine-readable format (i.e. XML) via our Bulk Data Repository.
Comparitive Agendas Project Data & Codebooks: United States
Media: Congressional Quarterly Almanac; New York Times Front Page; New York Times Index; New York Times Index Weights; TV News Policy Agenda Data
Parliamentary & Legislative: Congressional Bills; Congressional Hearings;Public Law Titles; Public Laws; Roll Call Votes; Prime Minister & Executive; Executive Orders; Presidential Veto Rhetoric; State of the Union Speeches
Political Parties:Democratic Party Platform; Republican Party Platform
Judiciary: Supreme Court Cases; Budget; Budget Authority (Adjusted); Budget Authority-Policy Crosswalk; Budget Outlays; Tax Expenditures
Public Opinion & Interest Groups: Encyclopedia of Associations; Gallup's Most Important Problem; Policy Moods
the @unitedstates project
@unitedstates is a shared commons of data and tools for the United States. Made by the public, used by the public. Featuring work from people with the Sunlight Foundation, GovTrack.us, the New York Times, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Internet
Charles Stewart's Congressional Data Page
Links and citation info for multiple Congressional datasets:
Congressional Committees, 80th--102nd Congresses Garrison Nelson
Congressional Committees, Historical Standing Committees David Canon, Garrison Nelson, Charles Stewart III
Congressional Committees, Modern Standing Committees, 103rd--112th Congresses Charles Stewart III and Jonathan Woon
Candidate Quality and U.S. Senate Election Data David Lublin
Congressional District Demographic and Political Data David Lublin
Candidate Positioning Data Stephen Ansolabehere, James M. Snyder, and CharlesStewart III
Federal Elections Project David Lublin
House and Senate Party Voting Scores Joseph Cooper and Garry Young
House Committee Request Data Scott Frisch and Sean Kelly
Nominal and Adjusted Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) Voting Records, 1947-2007 Sarah Anderson (UCSB) and Philip Habel (SIUC)
Voteview Royce Carroll (Rice), James Lo (UCLA), Jeff Lewis (UCLA), Nolan McCarty (Princeton), Keith Poole (UCSD), and Howard Rosenthal (NYU).
Adjusted Interest Group Scores Timothy Groseclose (UCLA)
Jeff Lewis and Keith Poole's roll call downloads. Jeff Lewis and Keith Poole
Voteview.com (NOMINATE and Related Data)
Allows users to view every congressional roll call vote in American history on a map of the United States and on a liberal-conservative ideological map, including information about the ideological position of voting Senators and Representatives.
Congressional Bills Project
This public resource provides information about more than 400,000 bills introduced in the U.S. Congress, currently 1947-2008, along with extensive information about each bill's progress and sponsor. It is used by researchers to study legislative institutions and behavior; by policy experts to study issue attention in Congress; and even by citizens studying their family histories (the dataset provides the only digitized records of tens of thousands of private bills introduced between 1947 and 1972).

Statistical Abstract of the United States, ProQuest (2013- )
Authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States. The online version includes monthly updates to tables. This database replaces the previously-free Census Bureau publication (1878-2012). It uses many of the same, along with additional, data sources as the earlier editions.

U.S. Officials' Job Approval Ratings (JARs)
Cooperative Project of The University of Rochester, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, & George Washington University.
-State Governors 1958-2009 Database (Excel format) (updated 3/29/10)
Note: State Governors includes California Governor Davis recall support poll results.
- U.S. Senators 1978-2009 Database (Excel format)(updated 3/29/10)
- U.S. Presidents 1945-2009 Database (Excel format) (updated 3/29/10)
Precinct-Level Election Data Project
Collection of precinct-level results for as many U.S. elections as possible since 2000, linked to GIS boundary files of voting tabulation districts. Also visualized in the Stanford Election Atlas.
Daily Kos Elections
Skim through the blog for recent elections data such as
Gubernatorial Race Ratings
Senate Race Ratings
Document Collection
Presidential Vote by Legislative Districts
Presidential Vote by Congressional Districts
House Race Ratings

State government datasets

Plural Open Data & Democracy Tools (formerly Open States)
Open Data & Democracy Tools include: Search & Track Legislation (bill tracker), Find Your Legislators, and bulk state legislator data and state bill & vote data available for download and via API. Plural describes itself as a policy-tracking platform that uses artificial intelligence to make policy creation more transparent, responsive, and inclusive. In 2021, it adopted the defunct Sunlight Foundation's legacy Open States tools as their Open Data & Democracy Tools.
Klarner Politics - Data Made Publicly Available
STATE LEGISLATIVE ELECTION RETURNS DATASET
State legislative election returns for all 50 states from 1967 to 2016.

STATE ECONOMIC & GOVERNMENT FINANCE DATA
State level economic performance and state government tax and spending data.

GOVERNOR'S DATASET
Lists governors serving between

COMPETITIVENESS MEASURES: RANNEY INDEX & HOLDBROOK & VAN DUNK INDEX
Covers these indexes from 1970 to 2010.

STATE PARTISAN BALANCE DATA, 1937-2011
Contains variables measuring the number of Democrats and Republicans in both chambers of the state legislature and governor's office from 1937 to 2011. Others track majority party control, and veto, tax, and budget supermajorities.
Elections: Gubernatorial and State Legislatures
From the 2012 (and final) Statistical Abstract
416 - Number of Governors by Political Party Affiliation
417 - Vote Cast for and Governor Elected by State
418 - Political Party Control of State Legislatures by Party
419 - Composition of State Legislatures by Political Party Affiliation

U.S. Polling/Election/Survey Data

American National Election Studies (ANES)
The National Election Studies series is one of the premier sources for data on voting behavior and political attitudes in the post-WWII United States. Upon registering (which is free), users can download data and SAS/SPSS/Stata program files and documentation for any of the various ANES studies. The SDA Archive at UC-Berkeley also allows users to access recent versions of the ANES and search at the variable level as well as conduct online analyse
California Field Polls and UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) Polls
The Field Poll, or the California Poll, was established in 1947 by Mervin Field and operated continuously as an independent, non-partisan, media-sponsored public opinion news service through 2016, with a focus on California voters. Since 2015, the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) has continued the mission of the Field Poll.
CQ Voting and Elections Collection
United States election voting reference works with downloadable elections data. Covers the American voter, to major and minor political parties, actual races for Congress, the Presidency, and governorships. Election data can be downloaded in csv or tsv and earliest date of coverage varies by office: President (national summary: 1789; county detail: 1920); Senate (national summary: 1908; county detail: 1968); Governor (national summary: 1824; county detail: 1967); House (national summary: 1824; district detail: 1968). More details in the CQ Libguide

GDELT Project
Supported by Google Ideas, the GDELT Project monitors the world's broadcast, print, and web news from nearly every corner of every country in over 100 languages and identifies the people, locations, organizations, counts, themes, sources, emotions, counts, quotes and events driving our global society every second of every day, creating a free open platform for computing on the entire world.
General Social Survey (GSS)
The GSS measures public opinion in the United States on a wide variety of topics of interest to social scientists. The survey, which began in the early 1970's, provides a (nearly) annual perspective on American attitudes toward government, life, race, religion, and other social issues.
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a major center for the study of public opinion and regularly conducts polls (both at home and abroad) about various social and political topics and contemporary issues. They make many of their studies available for download here. Many of the more recent data files are in SPSS format. Users are required to register before downloading a dataset, but registration is free.

Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
An archive of public opinion and survey research. The Search for Datasets includes only those surveys for which the Roper Center holds the datasets (microdata or individual level), with brief descriptions of each. These include national, state, and foreign surveys, as well as special samples such as leaders or youth. iPOLL contains the aggregated question-level results from the US national surveys in the catalog, as well as a great deal of additional survey data from news releases and survey reports.

Government Responses to COVID-19

FAO - Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) - Country Profiles
ILO - Country policy responses
IMF - Policy Responses to COVID-19
International IDEA - Global Monitor of COVID-19´s impact on Democracy and Human Rights
Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker
Response2covid19 - Governments' Responses to COVID-19
Social Protection Responses to COVID-19 Crisis Around the World
CoronaNet Research Project
A database on government responses to the coronavirus compiled by a community of over more than 500 political, social and public health science scholars from all over the world.
The COVID States Project
The 50-state COVID-19 project shares reports, polling, and other data and information collected by a multi-university group of researchers with expertise in computational social science, network science, public opinion polling, epidemiology, public health, communication, and political science. The aim is to help practitioners and governments to make informed decisions and allocate resources more effectively. The research seeks to identify links between social behaviors and virus transmission, as well as and the impact of messaging and regulation on individual and community outcomes during this crisis.

Featured Resource

Need to find statistics that might be hiding in a publication?

ProQuest Statistical Insight
1973-present. Huge database of citations to statistical publications from U.S. federal and state governments, international agencies, nonprofit and educational institutions, and private publishers including trade and industry groups. Full text of the publication or report is often included, and many tables are downloadable in Excel. Particularly good for demographic and country-level information. Previous name Statistical Universe.

Featured Resource

Need easy to manipulate statistical information over time?

Sage Data (formerly Data-Planet)
Provides easy access to statistical data. Data is downloadable in Excel and CSV, and shapefiles when multiple geographies are covered. Sources include: Bombay Stock Exchange, British Bankers' Association, Chicago Board Options, Exchange, China Data Center, D&B (Dun & Bradstreet), Dave Leip's Atlas of US Presidential Elections, Defense Manpower Data Center, Deutsche Börse Group, Dow Jones, Easy Analytic Software Inc. (EASI), Eurostat, FTSE Group, HSI Services Limited (Hong Kong), International Monetary Fund, London Bullion Market Association , London Platinum & Palladium Market, NASDAQ OMX Group, National Bureau of Economic Research, Nikkei, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Standard & Poor's, World Bank, World Resource Institute, Xignite, and many US Federal agencies. See the Data-Planet Libguide for more detail.