Ideological Social Identity
In 2010, I conducted a survey experiment designed to measure social identity with respect to ideological in-groups (e.g., liberals, conservatives, moderates), and its variation across distinct electoral contexts. This research was funded by Time-Sharing Experiments for Social Sciences (TESS), and it was carried out among a nationally representative sample of 1,250 respondents, by Knowledge Networks. I used these data in my 2015 Political Behavior article, "Ideological Social Identity: Psychological Attachment to Ideological In-Groups as a Political Phenomenon," as well as in my 2011 dissertation.
You can access the data, as well as other study materials, from the TESS website here.
Campaign Visits
Here I present an original dataset of presidential and vice presidential candidate visits, in 2016. I collected these data, with the intention of extending my research to include previous election years, for two reasons. First, there are few existing data sources on presidential campaign visits, and those that do exist are (in my opinion) lacking in some important respects. For example, many of these sources provide no (or inconsistent) documentation that a visit occurred, or they record only announced/scheduled visits and therefore miss many impromptu visits to local businesses, etc. Also, these sources typically fail to record exactly where a visit took place, which makes it impossible to test hypotheses relating to the congressional district or type of venue hosting that event. Second, these data sources often employ different rules for data collection - with respect to the included candidates, time frame, etc. - that make it difficult to compare campaign visits across election years/data sources, or fail to meet standards that I regard as more appropriate or at least a better fit for my research objectives.
The dataset that I provide here is designed to be a resource for other researchers, in itself and (eventually) as part of a series of datasets to document campaign visits in recent presidential elections. To that end, I have tried to make the data specific enough to be easily adapted for other researchers' purposes. For example, I provide extensive detail on exactly where each event took place (venue, city, county, state); identify all participating presidential or vice presidential candidates, as well as spouses; and provide two sources for each visit, confirming these details.
For the purposes of this analysis, I define campaign visits as any public appearance apparently organized or initiated by the campaign or its candidates, for the purpose of appealing to a localized concentration of voters. This definition excludes many nationally-oriented events, such as speeches to national party, business, or advocacy group conventions, and events that systematically exclude journalists and/or the public, such as private fundraisers and closed press conferences. To identify campaign visits, I began by checking the campaigns' official schedules, and then conducted online searches to determine whether the visit actually took place, and to identify other (unscheduled) visits. The nature of each visit is described in the dataset, and, again, multiple sources are provided for each visit. Therefore, if other researchers wish to exclude some of these visits or analyze only certain types of visits, the data allow them to do so. This is a short synopsis of the data collection process. I invite you to contact me if you are interested in using these data, and have additional questions. And, of course, I request that anyone using these data in their research cite me when doing so.
I have used these data in several recent research projects, including my 2018 article in The Forum ("What If Hillary Clinton Had Gone to Wisconsin?") and my 2019 article in PS: Political Science and Politics ("Voter Mobilization 101"). I have also collected data for the 2012 and 2008 elections. I will be adding those files in the future. I hope that doing so will provide an accessible, easily adaptable, consistent data source on presidential campaign visits for scholars to use in their future projects.
You can download the 2016 campaign visits data here.
In 2010, I conducted a survey experiment designed to measure social identity with respect to ideological in-groups (e.g., liberals, conservatives, moderates), and its variation across distinct electoral contexts. This research was funded by Time-Sharing Experiments for Social Sciences (TESS), and it was carried out among a nationally representative sample of 1,250 respondents, by Knowledge Networks. I used these data in my 2015 Political Behavior article, "Ideological Social Identity: Psychological Attachment to Ideological In-Groups as a Political Phenomenon," as well as in my 2011 dissertation.
You can access the data, as well as other study materials, from the TESS website here.
Campaign Visits
Here I present an original dataset of presidential and vice presidential candidate visits, in 2016. I collected these data, with the intention of extending my research to include previous election years, for two reasons. First, there are few existing data sources on presidential campaign visits, and those that do exist are (in my opinion) lacking in some important respects. For example, many of these sources provide no (or inconsistent) documentation that a visit occurred, or they record only announced/scheduled visits and therefore miss many impromptu visits to local businesses, etc. Also, these sources typically fail to record exactly where a visit took place, which makes it impossible to test hypotheses relating to the congressional district or type of venue hosting that event. Second, these data sources often employ different rules for data collection - with respect to the included candidates, time frame, etc. - that make it difficult to compare campaign visits across election years/data sources, or fail to meet standards that I regard as more appropriate or at least a better fit for my research objectives.
The dataset that I provide here is designed to be a resource for other researchers, in itself and (eventually) as part of a series of datasets to document campaign visits in recent presidential elections. To that end, I have tried to make the data specific enough to be easily adapted for other researchers' purposes. For example, I provide extensive detail on exactly where each event took place (venue, city, county, state); identify all participating presidential or vice presidential candidates, as well as spouses; and provide two sources for each visit, confirming these details.
For the purposes of this analysis, I define campaign visits as any public appearance apparently organized or initiated by the campaign or its candidates, for the purpose of appealing to a localized concentration of voters. This definition excludes many nationally-oriented events, such as speeches to national party, business, or advocacy group conventions, and events that systematically exclude journalists and/or the public, such as private fundraisers and closed press conferences. To identify campaign visits, I began by checking the campaigns' official schedules, and then conducted online searches to determine whether the visit actually took place, and to identify other (unscheduled) visits. The nature of each visit is described in the dataset, and, again, multiple sources are provided for each visit. Therefore, if other researchers wish to exclude some of these visits or analyze only certain types of visits, the data allow them to do so. This is a short synopsis of the data collection process. I invite you to contact me if you are interested in using these data, and have additional questions. And, of course, I request that anyone using these data in their research cite me when doing so.
I have used these data in several recent research projects, including my 2018 article in The Forum ("What If Hillary Clinton Had Gone to Wisconsin?") and my 2019 article in PS: Political Science and Politics ("Voter Mobilization 101"). I have also collected data for the 2012 and 2008 elections. I will be adding those files in the future. I hope that doing so will provide an accessible, easily adaptable, consistent data source on presidential campaign visits for scholars to use in their future projects.
You can download the 2016 campaign visits data here.