Welcome to the Voting and Elections Collection.
Find top-quality reference narratives and documents on elections, parties, voter behavior, and campaigns. Extract election results by meaningful characteristics: candidate, office, locality, and race type over time. Access U.S. election results across states with great historical depth and accuracy.
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1 2 3 4Elections Data Update
Our dedicated editorial team has spent many months gathering, cleaning, and updating certified elections data as the states have released their official results. We're pleased to announce that all 2018 primary and general elections data is now available and live in the collection! Interested to see the outcomes in your area?
The Caucuses: Is it Time for Them to Go?
Since the presidential nominating process was overhauled a half century ago to increase citizen participation, the states have had two basic choices when it comes to selecting their national convention delegates. One is primary elections, where voters can cast their ballot at a time of their choosing on primary election day—if not before. The other option is caucuses, neighborhood events in states, such as Iowa and Nevada, where voters meet at a certain time to express their presidential preferences, and sometimes stay for hours to align themselves into viable groups, which among Democrats is at least 15% of the vote. But have these caucuses overstayed their welcome?
Democratic Candidates’ Vote-Getting Prowess: Is There Cause for Concern?
According to recent polling, there are currently four leading candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination: former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. On December 15, the RealClear Politics rolling average of nationwide polls showed Biden with 28.2 percent support of all respondents, followed by Sanders with 19.2 percent, Warren with 16.4 percent, and Buttigieg with 8.8 percent. No other candidate had more than 5 percent.
Early Pre-Primary Polls in Recent Elections
There are many in the political community who believe that any presidential primary polling at this point of the nominating process is virtually meaningless. With more than six months to go before the lead-off caucuses in Iowa, it is way too early to conduct significant polling, they say, because the results simply accent the standing of those candidates with high name recognition. Yet over the last dozen years, pre-primary polls taken during July of the pre-election year have been highly prescient.
