The American National Election Studies (ANES) are academically-run national surveys of

voters Voting is the process of choosing officials or policies by casting a ballot, a document used by people to formally express their preferences. Republics and representative democracies are governments where the population chooses representatives ...

in the United States, conducted before and after every

presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The p ...

. Although it was formally established by a

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

grant in 1977, the data are a continuation of studies going back to 1948. The study has been based at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

since its origin and, since 2005, has been run in partnership with

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Its principal investigators for the first four years of the partnership were

Arthur Lupia Arthur Lupia is an American political scientist. He is the Gerald R. Ford University Professor and Vice President for Research and Innovation (interim) at the University of Michigan. Prior to his term as Vice President, he served as an Assistant ...

and

Jon Krosnick Jon Alexander Krosnick is a professor of Political Science, Communication, and (by courtesy) Psychology, and director of the Political Psychology Research Group (PPRG) at Stanford University. Additionally, he is the Frederic O. Glover Professor in ...

. As of 2025, the principal investigators are

Nicholas Valentino Nicholas A. Valentino is an American political scientist. He currently serves as a principal investigator of the American National Election Studies (ANES). Valentino earned a bachelor's degree from Brown University and completed his doctorate at ...

of the University of Michigan and

Shanto Iyengar Shanto Iyengar is an American political scientist and professor of political science at Stanford University. He is also the Harry & Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford, the director of Stanford's Political Communication Lab, a ...

of Stanford University. With more than 9,800 citations in published work, data spanning over 75 years, and more than 70 datasets, the American National Election Studies has acted as a cornerstone for public opinion research for the past 75 years, asking a representative sample of the American population survey questions before and after presidential elections. The ANES asks participants a wide scope of questions, ranging from the party identification of the respondent’s mother to their opinion on gay people in the military. Due to the ANES’ impressive research methods, it is commonly referred to as “the gold standard” of political science survey data. The studies ask the same questions repeatedly over time and are frequently cited in works of

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

. Early ANES data was the basis for ''

The American Voter ''The American Voter'', published in 1960, is a seminal study of voting behavior in the United States, authored by Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, colleagues at the University of Michigan. Among its contr ...

'' (1960). It is now used by scholars, students and journalists. It has allowed the detection of partisan bias in survey responses, showing that respondents' political affiliations contribute to their responses, extending even to questions with objective, known answers, such as whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. In 2006, ANES opened the ANES Online Commons to allow interested scholars and survey professionals to propose questions for future surveys. In 2022, ANES received a $14 million grant to study the 2024 United States elections. University of Michigan professor

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

's D. Sunshine Hillygus, and the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

' Daron Shaw will be principal investigators. On the American National Election Studies website, the data the study has collected over the past 75 years can be accessed and downloaded under the “Data Center” tab. This tab houses many datasets, including those for each year studied and a time series dataset that holds data from 1958 on. These datasets can be downloaded in many formats, including as a CSV file, which can be used when coding in R. The ANES also utilizes a question search tool to assist in research, which allows researchers to filter every ANES variable given a keyword to find the preferred variable.

References

External links

* {{U.S. Elections by State Psephology Elections in the United States