Research Guides: *Social Science Data Resources: Politics and Political Attitudes

Key Resources

Remember to check the key resources:

ICPSR Data Archive This link opens in a new window
Access to thousands of social science datasets for research and instruction. A first place to start in looking for social science data for secondary analysis.
Roper Center For Public Opinion Research This link opens in a new window
one of the world's leading archives of social science data, specializing in data from surveys of public opinion.

US Decennial Censuses
data.census.gov
Data.census.gov is the new platform to access data and digital content from the U.S. Census Bureau and has been designed to simplify access to the Bureau’s many data products. This chart shows data available. The 2020 Census data will be released on this site.
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The American FactFinder website will cease March 2020. No new data has been posted since June 2019.

Make an Appointment

Staff in the University Libraries can assist you with:

what data is available
where to find software for analysis
directing you to self-paced software learning resources

NUIT Research Computing provides support for a variety of software and analytic methods.

Politics and Political Attitudes

1991 National Race and Politics Survey
The 1991 National Race and Politics Survey was a nationwide telephone survey carried out by the Survey Research Center of the University of California, Berkeley. Respondents were asked questions about welfare, race relations, altruism, and members of other races.
American National Election Studies 1948-
Survey of voting behavior in the United States, conducted biennially since 1956. Basic questions on religious identification and attendance at religious services have been asked throughout the time series, but the religion module was widened starting in 1990. Contains links to download all the data.
American Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy Series
This series of quadrennial studies was designed to investigate the opinions and attitudes of the general public and a select group of opinion leaders on matters relating to United States foreign policy and to define the parameters of public opinion within which decision-makers must operate. Data covers 1975-2004.
Annual Survey of Governments
State and local government employment and finance data. Holdings cover 1973-1992. More recent years can be downloaded from the U. S. Census Bureau website's Federal, State, and Local Governments page.
Biennial Media Consumption Survey 1998 - 2002
Data on the public's use of, and attitudes toward, the Internet and traditional news outlets. Respondents are asked questions concerning their use of newspapers, television news, radio news, and news magazines.
British General Election Studies
Rrepresentative probability sample surveys in the country designed to explore the changing determinants of electoral behavior in contemporary Britain. The link above is to the surveys from 1969 through 1997. ICPSR also holds the earlier surveys starting in 1963.
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Datasets for more recent surveys are available at The British Election Study at the University of Essex.
Canadian National Election Study Series
Canadian National Election Surveys for 1965, 1968, 1972, 1974, 1984, 1988, 1993, 1997, 2000. Also includes the 1974-1979-1980 Quebec Referendum Panel Study and the 1992 Referendum Survey on the Charlottetown Accord.
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems
The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) is a collaborative program of cross-national research among election studies conducted in over fifty states.

CQ Voting & Elections Collection This link opens in a new window
Research and documents are organized into six categories: Presidential Elections; Congressional Elections; Gubenatorial Elections; Campaigns and Elections; Political Parties; and Voter and Demographics. For more information about this resource, connect to the CQ Voting and Elections Collection, and then click the "About" link near the upper right side of the screen.

Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections (DIME)
"The Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections (DIME) is intended as a general resource for the study of campaign finance and ideology in American politics." Data coverage 1979-2012. Hosted at Stanford University.
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The contribution database contains records for political donations made by individuals and organizations to local, state, and federal elections. The candidate database includes entries for candidates, PACs, super PACs, leadership PACs, 527s, party committees, campaigns for state ballot measures, and other recipient committees that engage in fundraising activities.
Eurobarometer Survey Series. 1970+
Large set of surveys measuring public opinion in the countries of the European Union, on a wide variety of topics.
Federal Election Commission
Detailed data on campaign contributions and expenditures by candidates, parties, and committees.
German Election Studies
In federal election years, the German Politbarometer is considered part of the German Election Study. However, in some election years when funding is not awarded, election studies are not carried out. 1969+
Harvard Election Data Archive
"The Harvard Election Data Archive is a space to share and improve election data. You can create an account and either correct the cataloging information for the studies in this dataverse or upload new data files. "
National Black Election Studies
The purpose of this data series was to provide large-scale scientific surveys and make possible in-depth investigation of the political attitudes, perceptions, and electoral behaviors of a large, representative national sample of adult Black Americans. The studies permit analyses and change in the Black community on a scale that had not been possible before the series began.
Pew Hispanic Center
A non-partisan research organization to improve understanding of the U.S. Hispanic population and to chronicle Latinos' growing impact on the United States. Downloadable datasets include the 2004 National Survey of Latinos: Politics and Civic Participation, the 2004 National Survey of Latinos: Education, and the 2002 National Survey of Latinos
Political Events Project, 1948-1965
Contains data on 6,754 political instability events in 84 selected nations in the period 1948-1965. The variables in the dataset are divided into four basic types: variables that identify events, classify events, describe events, and evaluate events.
Polity IV: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions
This Web site contains information on and access to the most recent update of the Polity data series, originally designed by Ted Robert Gurr. The Polity IV Project continues the Polity research tradition of coding the authority characteristics of states in the world system for purposes of comparative, quantitative analysis.

Roper Center For Public Opinion Research This link opens in a new window
An archive of public opinion and survey research. Northwestern has a subscription to the Roper Center. Students, faculty and staff may use the Center after authentication.

United States Congressional Biographical Data from ICPSR
The data provide information on congressional service and selected biographical characteristics for each person who had served in the United States Congress in the period 1789-1996.
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Personal account using NU email address required to download data and codebooks.
United States Historical Election Returns
ICPSR's holdings of historical election returns 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.

Voter Registration Lists

The National Conference of State Legislatures maintains this listing of the 50 states and their rules regarding access to voter registration information. The Pew Research Center conducted a comparative evaluation of five of commercial vendors for voter data, and this blogpost describes some of the companies that license access to enhanced voter registration lists, which might include demographic characteristics, voter history, opinion markers, party affiliation, and voting districting.