Stanford collaboration releases American National Election Studies 2016 data

With public responses on polarizing political issues and evaluations of the presidential candidates, the latest data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) – a collaborative project between Stanford University and the University of Michigan – are now available.

Since 1948, ANES has provided elections data about voting, public opinion and political participation to social scientists, teachers, students, policymakers and journalists.

ANES conducted face-to-face and internet interviews with more than 4,200 people for 2016. The study has two independently drawn probability samples that represent adult U.S. citizens.

New questions in the latest study focused on outsourcing, policing, political correctness, LGBT issues, gender issues, social mobility, economic inequality, campaign finance and international affairs.

The study interviewed respondents in a pre-election survey between Sept. 7 and Nov. 7, 2016. Election Day was Nov. 8. The study re-interviewed most of the same respondents again in a post-election survey between Nov. 9, 2016, and Jan. 8, 2017. The response rate was 50 percent for the face-to-face component and 44 percent for the internet component. The re-interview rate on the post-election survey was 90 percent for the face-to-face and 84 percent for the internet.

Unlike previous years, a major challenge for the 2016 data collection was the country’s increasing levels of polarization and individuals’ reluctance to share their feelings about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. “The data will tell us the extent to which Trump and Clinton voters inhabit distinct psychological worlds,” said Shanto Iyengar, the project’s co-principal investigator and Stanford professor of political science and of communication.

“Some Americans were much more resistant to participating in the survey,” said Ted Brader, the project’s co-principal investigator and University of Michigan professor of political science. “Many seemed to feel alienated, distrustful and sick of the election. Under these circumstances, we worked hard with our partners at Westat to overcome this reluctance and are pleased to have recruited such a high-quality sample by Election Day.”

ANES is a collaboration between the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Stanford University and the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, with funding by the National Science Foundation.

The data can be found at http://electionstudies.org/studypages/download/datacenter_all_NoData.php.

-30-