Nationscape Project: U.S. Public Opinion Survey During the 2020 Election

The Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project is a large-scale public opinion survey conducted during a presidential election. It interviewed roughly 6,250 people each week between July 2019 and January 2021, with respondents from nearly every U.S. county, congressional district, and mid-sized city. The project was a partnership between the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group and UCLA political scientists Chris Tausanovitch and Lynn Vavreck.

Use Cases

• Modeling U.S. voter sentiment trends based on weekly survey waves.
• Analyzing geographic variation in political opinions based on county and congressional district coverage.
• Studying changes in public opinion over the course of a presidential election cycle.

Strengths

• Approximately 6,250 respondents surveyed each week, providing high-frequency data.
• Respondents come from nearly every U.S. county, congressional district, and mid-sized city, suggesting broad geographic coverage.
• Data collection spanned 18 months from July 2019 to January 2021, covering a full election cycle.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Democracy Fund Voter Study Group and UCLA political scientists Chris Tausanovitch and Lynn Vavreck.

Collection Method

Large public opinion survey with respondents provided by the market research platform Lucid.

Time Range

July 2019 to January 2021

Geography

United States, with respondents from nearly every county, congressional district, and mid-sized city.