Data - Political Parties and Elections - Oakland Campus - Guides at University of Pittsburgh

General Data Sources

NOTE: Many of the books in the "Books on Elections" box in the Suggested Books tab of this guide are also good data sources.

American Local Government Elections Database
Downloadable dataset of 78,000 candidates in 57,000 electoral contests that encompasses races for seven distinct local political offices in most medium and large cities and counties in the U.S. from 1989-2021.
American National Election Studies
The mission of the American National Election Studies (ANES) is to inform explanations of election outcomes by providing data that support rich hypothesis testing, maximize methodological excellence, measure many variables, and promote comparisons across people, contexts, and time.
Center for American Women and Politics Data Sources
Data and analysis for current and past races with women candidates, by election year. Information on selected candidates goes back to 1970, but the dataset generally covers 1990-present.
David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
Maps and tables with Presidential votes since 1860. Maps outline state electoral votes. Tables show major and independent presidential and vice presidential candidates, popular and electoral votes, and percentages for both.
Historical Election Results
From the Federal Election Commission, historical election results for national offices going back to 1982.

Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Social Explorer is mainly an interactive map of demographic information drawn from the US Census. Users can examine geographic areas while selecting the type of data to be shown, such as population density or income level. Note: Creation of a Personal Account is required to fully access all Social Explorer features.

ICPSR Presidential Elections Data
A collection of datasets available from the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Data download requires creation of a MyData account.