Political Capital Characteristics of Renewable Energy Case Study Counties

This dataset encapsulates information on elected and appointed government officials and assesses voting statistics from the 2024 General Election for selected case study counties designated as the most renewable in eight U.S. economic regions. It includes data on U.S. Congressional representatives, state governors and legislators, county-level officials, and the largest city's legislative body for these counties. The dataset also summarizes county-level political organizations and provides a demographic assessment.

Use Cases

• Analyze the relationship between county-level elected and appointed officials and the county's designation as a renewable energy leader.
• Assess voting statistics at the county, cohort, and national levels from the 2024 General Election for demographic and political trend analysis.
• Map the structure of county-level political organizations across the eight economic regions to study civic participation.
• Compare the demographic profiles of U.S. Congressional representatives and state legislators representing the case study communities.

Strengths

• Focuses on a specific, policy-relevant cohort: the most renewable energy county in each of the eight U.S. Department of Commerce economic regions.
• Integrates multiple levels of political data, from federal representatives to county officials and city legislative bodies.
• Includes voting statistics from the recent 2024 General Election, providing contemporary political context.

Limitations

• The specific number of rows, columns, and file size is unknown, limiting assessment of dataset scale and structure.
• The sample data is unavailable, preventing verification of data format, completeness, and potential null values.
• The dataset's scope is limited to a specific, non-random selection of counties, which may limit generalizability.

Provenance

Source

Harvard Dataverse, authored by Michael Petersen.

Collection Method

Data compilation on elected/appointed officials and voting statistics, methodology described in the associated research.

Time Range

Includes data from the 2024 General Election; full temporal coverage is unspecified.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-02-19.

Geography

Case study counties designated as the most renewable in each of the eight U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Regions.