State Legislative Election Returns in the United States Series

collection: series

Investigator(s): Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)

Studies

5

Variables

165

Publications

178

About this Collection

The State Legislative Election Returns series was developed by ICPSR and was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation. A major purpose of this data series was to extend detailed study of electoral and governmental processes in the United States to the state and local levels, and to encourage comparative analyses of voting patterns, political party competition, and partisan control between different states or regions. ICPSR's holdings of state legislative election returns data cover the years 1968-1989 (ICPSR 8907), and 1993-1994 (ICPSR 2019). The datasets include election returns at the district, county, constituency, and candidate levels for state legislative races contested in all 50 states in the United States. Included also are special election returns, when provided as part of the official returns for the states (ICPSR 2019), and primary election returns for 16 southern and border states in the period 1968-1989 (ICPSR 8907).

Studies

5 results

State Legislative Election Returns (1967-2010)

This data set contains comprehensive information on state legislative general election returns from 1967 through 2010. Each of the more than 300,000 observations refers to an individual candidate who ran for state legislative office. Variables include district designations, year and month of election, type of district (multimember, etc.), and candidate attributes such as incumbency status, party and vote total. The data come from five sources, three of which are ICPSR data collections (#8907, #3938, #21480); this data set is an update of these previous releases, through 2010.

State Legislative Election Returns, 1967-2003

This data collection contains information on state legislative election returns from 1967 through 2003. Each observation in the data refers to an individual candidate who ran for state legislative office during this time period. There are a total of 259,000 observations. For some states, there are observations for candidates competing in primaries before 1990. For years after 1989, there are observations only for general elections.

State Legislative Election Returns in the United States, 1968-1989

The purpose of this collection is to extend detailed study of electoral and governmental processes in the United States to the state and local levels and to encourage comparative analyses of voting patterns, political party competition, and partisan control between different states or regions. The collection provides election data at the county, constituency, and candidate levels for state legislative races contested in the United States between 1968 and 1989. General election returns for all 50 states are included, as well as primary election returns for 16 southern and border states. Data include county-level returns for all major and minor political parties that contested elections for seats in state legislatures, individual candidate totals at both the county and constituency levels, incumbency status, total number of votes cast for all candidates in an election, each candidate's percentage of the vote, and several measures comparing a candidate's performance with those of his or her rivals.