American local government elections database.

Area of Science:

• Political Science
• American Politics
• Urban Studies

Background:

• Limited access to centralized election data has historically impeded research on U.S. urban and local politics.
• Previous datasets lacked the scope and detail necessary for comprehensive analysis of local electoral landscapes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel, comprehensive database of U.S. local election candidates and outcomes.
• To provide a centralized, publicly available resource for studying local political representation and electoral dynamics.

Main Methods:

• Compiled data on approximately 78,000 candidates across 57,000 electoral contests.
• Included races for seven distinct local political offices in medium and large U.S. cities and counties.
• Covered electoral data spanning the last three decades.

Main Results:

• The database represents the most extensive publicly accessible collection of U.S. local election information to date.
• It includes crucial partisan and demographic details for candidates, alongside electoral results.
• This resource aggregates data previously fragmented across numerous local jurisdictions.

Conclusions:

• The newly created database significantly enhances the study of local elections and representation in the United States.
• It is poised to enable a wide range of new scholarly investigations into the nature of local governance.
• This resource addresses a critical data gap, facilitating more robust empirical research in American local politics.