Political Science: State and Local elections + Data

This directory contains two data resources. First, this directory contains raw U.S. county-level electoral data of: 1) presidential elections from 1868-2020, 2) U.S. Senate elections from 1908-2020, and 3) gubernatorial elections from 1865-2020. Secondly, this directory contains all replication files for the manuscript "Partisanship & Nationalization in American Elections: Evidence from Presidential, Senatorial, & Gubernatorial Elections in the U.S. Counties, 1872-2020" published in Electoral Studies.Data is in Rdata format.

The United States Historical Election Returns series was developed by ICPSR and was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. ICPSR's holdings of historical election data cover the years 1788-1990 and consist of several discrete datasets that contain county- and state-level returns for all elections to the offices of president, governor, United States senator, and United States representative. ICPSR distributes three major general election data collections: United States Historical Election Returns, 1824-1968 (ICPSR 0001), General Election Data for the United States, 1950-1990 (ICPSR 0013), and United States Historical Election Returns, 1788-1823 (ICPSR 0079). ICPSR 0001 contains state files that list county- level returns for over 90 percent of all elections to the offices of president, governor, United States senator, and United States representative for all parties and candidates from 1824 to 1968, as well as special elections and regularly-scheduled contests. ICPSR 0013 consists of national files containing county-level returns for elections to the offices of president, governor, United States senator, and United States representative from 1950 to 1990. Also included in this collection are returns for one additional statewide office, usually attorney general or secretary of state, for those states that elected state offices in the period 1970-1990. ICPSR 0079 is an extension of the general election collection (ICPSR 0001) and covers the preceding years, 1788-1823, going back to the occurrence of the first elections held under the United States Constitution. This collection contains data for elections to the offices of president, governor, and United States representative for the years 1788-1823. These data, recorded chiefly at the county level, consist of only about half of the possible returns for elections in this period and are less complete than the body of returns available for the years from 1824-present. The Candidate Name and Constituency Totals, 1788-1990 (ICPSR 0002) data collection provides the names of candidates, candidates' political party name and ICPSR party ID code, and the number of votes received by each candidate for elections between 1788 and 1900. The data include county-level returns for over 90 percent of all elections to the offices of president, governor, United States representative (1824-1990), and United States senator (1912-1990). The dataset also includes returns for approximately two-thirds of all elections to the offices of president, governor, United States senator, and United States representative for the period 1788-1823. It contains returns for all parties and candidates (as well as scattering vote) contesting general elections and special elections anywhere in the nation. Information is also included on elections for which returns are available only at the constituency level and therefore not found in the county-level files of election returns in the other collections. Beginning with the 1968 elections, returns for one additional statewide office were included. Also included are 1990 data from the District of Columbia for United States senator and United States representative. Data is downloadable in ASCII, SAS, and SPSS formats. ICPSR 0013 is also available as tsv and pre-formatted for R and Stata.

Restructures the State Legislative Election Returns (1967-2016) dataset so that the contest is the unit of analysis. Collected by Carl Klarner of Klarnerpolitics.

Dataset contains state legislative general election returns from 1967 through 2016 for all 50 states. There are 378,345 observations, each of which represents an individual candidate. The years 1967 to 2010 contained in the last edition of the dataset have been extensively cleaned, and 2011 to 2016 has been added. Collected by Carl Klarner of Klarnerpolitics.

This repo contains results of general elections to the lower house of the state legislatures over the last five decades, from 1971 to 2018. Candidate information from Carl Klarner's State Legislative Election Returns dataset was used to compile these election results from 1971 - 2012. For each state, we only extract elections using Single Member districts

Collected by the Harvard Election Data Archive.

The State Legislative Election Returns series was developed by ICPSR and was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation. A major purpose of this data series was to extend detailed study of electoral and governmental processes in the United States to the state and local levels, and to encourage comparative analyses of voting patterns, political party competition, and partisan control between different states or regions. ICPSR's holdings of state legislative election returns data cover the years 1968-1989 (ICPSR 8907), and 1993-1994 (ICPSR 2019). The datasets include election returns at the district, county, constituency, and candidate levels for state legislative races contested in all 50 states in the United States. Included also are special election returns, when provided as part of the official returns for the states (ICPSR 2019), and primary election returns for 16 southern and border states in the period 1968-1989 (ICPSR 8907).

Data for elections to state supreme courts or courts of last resort (1990–2010)

NCSL’s Statewide Ballot Measures Database includes all statewide ballot measures in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, starting over a century ago. New measures are added as they are certified and identified by NCSL staff. Each entry contains the ballot number, title, type (legislative referendum, initiative, popular referendum, other), status, and summary. Covers all states and goes back as far as 1902.

This data collection contains election returns at the county and state levels from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth century for primary and general elections on statewide referenda, constitutional amendments, state House/Senate joint resolutions, and initiated measures. The ballot language of each measure is also included. County-level returns for most gubernatorial, senatorial, and congressional primary elections from 1910 to the present are documented as well.

The database lists all statewide initiatives to appear on the ballot since the first statewide initiative in Oregon in 1904. This list does not contain information on issues placed on the ballot by state legislatures, commonly referred to as "legislative measures."