The Downballot Ultimate Data Guide

David Nir
Aug 02, 2024
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Here at The Downballot, we’ve been living and breathing election data for decades, and wrangling raw numbers into useful datasets for almost as long. We’re proud to make our datasets available to the public, without cost, so that everybody can have access to the same quality data, from kids working on school projects to world-renowned journalists informing thousands of readers. You can find our work referenced in leading academic journals and printed out on coffee tables at election night watch parties.

Every time we see our products put to good use it warms our hearts! Please take a moment to support us so that we can continue this vital contribution to the public understanding of elections—and let us know what you’ve done with our data. We welcome (almost) any use of our data as long as you cite us and include a link to our work so that others may easily find it. However, we ask that you please refrain from reproducing entire spreadsheets.

Note: Many links below will reference Daily Kos Elections. We are in the process of rebranding from Daily Kos Elections to The Downballot.

Quick Hits

Our most popular current datasets

Additional Current Data

Updated datasets for districts in use today; see further details in Full Archive headings

Full Archive

All available datasets, past and present

Table of Contents:

Election Results by Congressional & Legislative Districts
Special Elections
Media Markets
Calendars
Primaries
Open Seat Trackers
Fundraising & Spending
House Vulnerability Index
Race Ratings
Candidate & Politician Guides and Demographics
State & Congressional District Demographics
District Relationships
Maps
Winning Streaks
Social Media & Podcast

Election Results by Congressional & Legislative Districts

All results were calculated by The Downballot team following our extensively detailed methodology. We also have calculated what portion of each old congressional district is within each new district (which we call our “redistribution” tables). Our results are free to use, convenient to find, and transparently calculated, and have been widely cited in national media outlets and academia alike. We offer three types of tables:

  Type A: lists results for all districts in one sheet

  Type B: lists results for all states, with one state per tab; shows results by county

  Type C: lists results for one state, with one county per tab; usually shows results by precinct

Table type shown in parentheses below.

Summary post with links to all presidential and statewide election results for congressional and legislative districts for 2012-2022 (B & C).

Presidential results by congressional district

Presidential & statewide election results by congressional district

Presidential & statewide election results by legislative district

Bonus: Presidential election results by state

Median districts

Redistricting resources

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Special Elections

We have been tracking special election results since the 2018 cycle. Our data includes all partisan congressional and legislative contests with just one Republican candidate and one Democratic candidate. Recent presidential results for each district are also included. While individual contests can be subject to circumstances that make them unreliable indicators of the electoral environment, the results of all qualifying special elections in a cycle have a good track record of predicting November outcomes for U.S. House elections. Our special elections databases have been widely cited in the press.

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Media Markets

Media markets are an important tool for understanding how an electoral contest develops, as ad buys are usually reported by market, not district. We’ve calculated presidential election results for media markets going back decades, and for recent congressional district lines, we’ve calculated how much of each congressional district is in each media market, and how much of each media market is in each district.

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Calendars

Handy links showing when primaries and filing deadlines are by state, and when important elections are held in odd-numbered years. Because every year’s an election year!

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Primaries

List of primaries we’re keeping our eyes on, as well as turnout and cross-party interference.

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Open Seat Trackers

Another indicator of the electoral environment, this resource includes all planned and unplanned departures from the House of Representatives along with reasons, consequences, and links to document what happened. In addition, we track which seats have just one major party candidate running. The legislative district tracker keeps tabs on the thousands of state legislature seats in much the same way.

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Fundraising & Spending

Another key metric to track each cycle, fundraising can tell you which candidates are in a strong position — and which could be caught napping. Independent expenditures, meanwhile, show where national organizations think the close races are (or where big donors have a pet project).

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House Vulnerability Index

Our ever-useful House Vulnerability Index doesn’t care if the general environment is more favorable to Democrats or Republicans. It just tells you which seats are most likely to flip, and, approximately, in what order. A stronger Democratic environment just gets you further down the list, and vice-versa.

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Race Ratings

Our archived read of the state of the races.

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Candidate & Politician Guides and Demographics

Our candidate and congress guides compile demographic data for all officeholders and every competitive candidate in Congress, and demographic data for the districts themselves. Presidential and candidate vote shares in each district are shown as well. Includes handy name pronunciation guide with links to videos of candidates pronouncing their own names. We also periodically take a look at which seats have a congressional representative with an ethnicity that differs from the majority or plurality of their district.

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State & Congressional District Demographics

Can’t name the major cities in CA-35 off the top of your head? Jealous of the UK’s constituency names like Berwick-upon-Tweed? Well, we’ve got just the thing for you in our geographic descriptions files… although, maybe not as amusing as the UK names. That, along with numbers for race, ethnicity, ancestry, education, income, age, citizenship, religion, and urban/rural classification, can all be found in this section.

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District Relationships

What makes up a district? We have the answer! Whether in terms of counties, other districts, or old districts, our tables can illuminate the relationship.

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Maps

We love maps here at The Downballot, and we know we’re not alone. So we’ve made templates available for some of our favorites, including our non-contiguous congressional cartogram with equal area for each district, a regular congressional district map with water boundaries, and our tile map with one hexagon for every state.

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Winning Streaks

Use these tables to find the last time a party won in states and counties, or nationally for the Senate popular vote.

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Social Media & Podcast

Social media

Podcast

  • The Downballot (note: transcripts available using the Apple Podcasts app or right here on Substack)

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