Abstract
AbstractThe study of urban and local politics in the United States has long been hindered by a lack of centralized sources of election data. We introduce a new database of about 78,000 candidates in 57,000 electoral contests that encompasses races for seven distinct local political offices in most medium and large cities and counties in the U.S. over the last three decades. This is the most comprehensive publicly-available source of information on local elections across the country. We provide partisan and demographic information about candidates in these races as well as electoral outcomes. This new database will facilitate a myriad of new research on representation and elections in local governments.
Funder
MIT Election Data Science and Research Lab
Boston University Initiative for Cities
Russell Sage Foundation
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Library and Information Sciences,Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty,Computer Science Applications,Education,Information Systems,Statistics and Probability