ICPSR: United States Historical Election Returns Series
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.
