Voting Behavior in the 2016 Election

An instructional resources project sponsored by the APSA, ICPSR, and SETUPS.

See Also

  • Printer-Friendly Codebook

    Please note the PDF file contains weighted marginals; DAS provides unweighted marginals in its codebook.

The Codebook

The 2016 SETUPS dataset consists of 202 variables drawn from the American National Election Study described in Survey Research Methods. These 202 variables contain information about the attitudes, behavior, and characteristics of the 3,649 respondents who were part of both the pre- and post-election surveys. In addition to the 202 substantive variables, the dataset also includes respondent identification numbers and weights for each case, but these are not variables that users will analyze and so are not included in this codebook.

The 202 substantive variables are categorical variables. To make the analysis simpler, we have recoded many of the variables in order to reduce the number of possible categories. Only a few variables have more than seven valid categories.

The codebook contains information for each of these variables. To view the list of variables and the details for each one, select the "Browse codebook in this window" option on the main page of SDA. When the list of variables appears, you can click on any variable name, which will produce the codebook information. It does not matter whether you select the sequential or alphabetical variable list, as they contain the same information, just in different orders.

Most of the variables are relatively straightforward and need little additional explanation beyond what is in the codebook, but some variables require a more thorough explanation. See additional information on selected variables.

Also, please note that at the time of the preparation of this dataset and website, there were some variables that had not yet been completely processed by ANES. These are noted in the codebook and will be added as they become ready for use.

The 202 substantive variables are grouped into the following categories:

  1. Voting Behavior and Related Items
  2. Political Involvement and Participation Items
  3. Media Exposure and Consumption
  4. Candidate Image Items
  5. Presidential and Congressional Performance Items
  6. Economic Conditions
  7. Ideology
  8. Health Care Policy Issue Items
  9. Economic, Social Welfare, and Spending Issue Items
  10. Social and Moral Issue Items
  11. Women's and Gender Issue Items
  12. Civil Rights and Race-Related Issue Items
  13. Foreign Policy and National Security
  14. General Political Attitudes and Orientations
  15. Demographic and Social Characteristics