Journal article
CampaignView, a database of policy platforms and biographical narratives for congressional candidates
Scientific data, Vol.12(1), 1237
07/15/2025
DOI: 10.1038/s41597-025-05491-x
PMCID: PMC12264109
PMID: 40664906
Abstract
Thousands of candidates run for the U.S. Congress each election season, yet we lack systematic information on the vast majority of these contenders. Consequently, fundamental questions about polarization, agenda-setting, and representation remain unanswered. We introduce CampaignView, a database of campaign platforms and biographical narratives drawn from congressional campaign websites. Our corpus covers 5,228 candidates, representing 86.9% of major-party, ballot-eligible contenders who ran for the U.S. House of Representatives between 2018 and 2022. Our text data was collected in real-time during each election cycle, parsed into relevant units of aggregation, and manually annotated for topical coverage. In sum, our data includes 43,465 platform points and 5,114 biographical narratives. We provide auxiliary information on candidates and their electoral contexts to supplement our data. We host data for public dissemination at https://campaignview.org . Information is crucial to a well-functioning democracy; the open-access tools and data we produce have broad utility for journalists, advocacy groups, voters, and researchers seeking information on congressional campaigns.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- CampaignView, a database of policy platforms and biographical narratives for congressional candidates
- Creators
- Rachel Porter - University of Notre DameColin R Case - University of IowaSarah A Treul - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Scientific data, Vol.12(1), 1237
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41597-025-05491-x
- PMID
- 40664906
- PMCID
- PMC12264109
- NLM abbreviation
- Sci Data
- ISSN
- 2052-4463
- eISSN
- 2052-4463
- Publisher
- NATURE PORTFOLIO
- Grant note
- Unite America (https://www.uniteamerica.org/) is a philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan election reform to foster a more representative and functional government.Social Science Research Council's Social Data Dissertation FellowshipUnite America's Elections Reform GrantLucy Family Institute for Data and Society at the University of Notre Dame
We appreciate the excellent research assistance of Andrew Adams, Tejazaditya Ajit, Nicole Belcher, Brian Brew, Lily Brewton, Sophie Clarkson, Madeline Ellis, Caroline Harvey, Noah Houser, Elsa Karcher, Alex Love, Maura McDonald, Jalen McMillian-Dixon, Maggie Pollard, Rianna Saslow, Audrey Sachleben, Joseph Solomon, and Sarah Zhang. This work was supported by funding from the Social Science Research Council's Social Data Dissertation Fellowship as well as Unite America's Elections Reform Grant. The development of the CampaignView data platform was supported by the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society at the University of Notre Dame.
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/15/2025
- Academic Unit
- Center for Social Science Innovation; Political Science
- Record Identifier
- 9984848110302771
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