Survey of United States Congressional Candidates, 1976 (ICPSR 7570)

Version Date: Feb 16, 1992

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Principal Investigator(s):
United States Federal Election Commission

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07570.v1

Version V1

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Summary

This data collection contains the results of a survey of the candidates who ran for United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives in 1976. By surveying such candidates, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was attempting to collect systematically the views of those directly affected and regulated by the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) as it was amended in 1974 and 1976. Those amendments called for significant changes in the rules for campaign contributions and expenditures, restrictions on independent expenditures and in-kind contributions, and public disclosure of all federal campaign activity. The survey was conducted by Decision Making Information of Santa Ana, California, and Hart Research Commission in the first two months of 1976. In all, 850 respondents (candidates, campaign managers, and other campaign representatives) were interviewed by mail or in person. The survey questions focused on seven major topics: (1) actual characteristics of the campaigns and the candidates covered by the survey, (2) experiences during the 1976 election, (3) finances in 1976, (4) impact of the FECA on campaign organization, (5) the role played by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as an information source for, and regulator of, campaigns, (6) which items dealt with by the FECA were favored or opposed by candidates and campaign managers who participated in the 1976 election, and (7) the respondent's overall feelings about what should be done in the future.

Citation

United States Federal Election Commission. Survey of United States Congressional Candidates, 1976 . [distributor], 1992-02-16. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07570.v1

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Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

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Time Period(s)

1976

Date of Collection

1976-01-14 -- 1976-02-26
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Sample

Stratified random sampling was done. The 850 respondents represented an accurate cross-section of House and Senate candidates, chosen by random interval selection methods and stratified by several factors: Senate/House campaigns, primary/general campaigns, party affiliation, and geographic regions.

Universe

The 2,150 United States House of Representatives and United States Senate candidates in 1976 whose names appeared on a primary or general ballot. Those candidates who filed a statement with the FECA but failed to run in 1976, as well as those who failed in 1976 to complete reporting requirements for an office sought in preceding years (1974 or 1972) were eliminated from the universe.

Data Source

personal interviews, and mailback questionnaires

Data Type(s)

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Original Release Date

1984-05-08

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • U.S. Federal Election Commission. SURVEY OF UNITED STATES CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES, 1976. ICPSR ed. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 197?. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07570.v1

1984-05-08 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Notes