7: The ANES

Data Wrangling and Visualization

Author

Prof. Jack Reilly

Published

Fall 2026

Data Work

  1. Browse Bartels (2000) - β€œPartisanship and Voting Behavior, 1952-1996”. Using the Cumulative American National Election Studies (ANES) file, replicate both parts of Figure 1.

    • Note: you can get very close on the top half of figure 1. The bottom half, however, will look a little different in the early years due to Bartels having access to a different version of the ANES than is currently publicly available.

  2. Extend the analysis to include recent years as well.

  3. Extend the analysis to 2024, using the 2024 ANES file. (This will require using the 2024 file in conjunction with the cumulative file.)

  4. Create figures that include midterm election years as well.

  5. Original Work: explore the codebook for the ANES. Find two interesting variables and create compelling univariate graphs to illustrate their central tendency, distribution, and spread.

  6. Bonus: Replicate Figure 2 from Bartels as well; add in recent years and 2024.

Submission

Your completed assignment should include a copy of your .R script file(s) (with comments, etc) used to code the variables and do the analysis, a .quarto file that contains your writeup and figures, and a .PDF file with all of your (properly labeled and attractively laid out) tables/figures.

In your writeup, address the following questions:

  1. Where did you encounter problems with this replication? Was there anything that was particularly tricky?

  2. How would you interpret (explain) what Bartels found in figures 1 & 2?

  3. Has anything changed since 1996 that would alter the substantive takeaway points in their findings?

  4. Does anything change about the analysis in a substantive way when you include midterm election years?