This study is part of the American National Election Study (ANES), a time-series collection of national surveys fielded continuously since 1948. The American National Election Studies are designed to present data on Americans' social backgrounds, enduring political predispositions, social and political values, perceptions and evaluations of groups and candidates, opinions on questions of public policy, and participation in political life. As with all Time Series studies conducted during years of presidential elections, respondents were interviewed during the two months preceding the November election (Pre-election interview), and then re-interviewed during the two months following the election (Post-election interview). Like its predecessors, the 2012 ANES was divided between questions necessary for tracking long-term trends and questions necessary to understand the particular political moment of 2012. The study maintains and extends the ANES time-series 'core' by collecting data on Americans' basic political beliefs, allegiances, and behaviors, which are so critical to a general understanding of politics that they are monitored at every election, no matter the nature of the specific campaign or the broader setting. For the first time in the ANES Time Series history, face-to-face interviewing was supplemented in 2012 with data collection on the Internet. Data collection was conducted in the two modes independently, using separate samples. While face-to-face (FTF) respondents were administered the single pre-election interview and single post-election interview traditional to Time Series presidential-election-year studies, for the internet sample the same questions were administered over a total of four shorter online interviews, two pre-election and two post-election. Web-administered cases constituted a representative sample separate from the face-to-face sample and were drawn from panel members of GfK Knowledge Networks. The face-to-face (FTF) sample of fresh cross-section cases featured oversamples of African-Americans and Hispanics. For the first time in the ANES Time Series, FTF respondents were administered CAPI interviews programmed as instruments on handheld tablets, which were employed by interviewers using touchscreen, stylus, attached keyboard or any combination of entry modes according to interviewer preference. In both the pre-election and post-election FTF interviews a special CASI (Computer Assisted Self-Interviewing) segment was conducted. In addition to content on electoral participation, voting behavior, and public opinion, the 2012 ANES Time Series Study contains questions about areas such as media exposure, cognitive style, and values and predispositions. Several items were measured on the ANES for the first time, including "Big Five" personality traits using the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), skin tone observations made by interviewers in the face-to-face study, and a vocabulary test from the General Social Survey called "Wordsum." The Post-Election interview also included Module 4 from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). Demographic variables include respondent age, education level, political affiliation, race/ethnicity, marital status, and family composition.

This study is part of a time-series collection of national surveys fielded continuously since 1948. The election studies are designed to present data on Americans' social backgrounds, enduring political predispositions, social and political values, perceptions and evaluations of groups and candidates, opinions on questions of public policy, and participation in political life. Four areas were targeted for special attention: new measurement of party identification, the measurement of voter attitudes concerning issues of public policy, new content concerning public perceptions of and responses to political leadership, and the exploration of social networks in the crystallization of the vote choice. Special-interest and topical content includes questions on the proposed 30% tax cut, new questions on campaign contributions and party identification, new retrospective and prospective evaluations of the economy, new issue scales on defense spending and U.S. foreign policy toward Russia, a new abortion question, and the introduction to the ANES time series of 'traits and affects' measures of perception and response regarding political leadership. Besides representing a traditional pre-post election study, the two waves of the 1980 ANES Time Series Study were simultaneously components of a larger project consisting of 8 integrated survey data collections carried out throughout 1980 and scheduled at strategically chosen time periods in the course of the election year, along with vote validation and contextual data. Other studies in the project included the four-wave 1980 Major Panel Study [ICPSR 35120], and a 2-wave minor panel that is available only in the ANES 1980 Merged File [ICPSR 35119], which combines into a single dataset all of the ANES data collected in 1980. The National Election Studies Board established a 1980 Presidential Elections Committee that consisted of three Board members (Merrill Shanks, John Jackson, David Sears) and three additional scholars (Richard S. Brody, Jack Dennis, Donald R. Kinder). This committee, along with the Center for Political Studies project staff, was responsible for the planning of the year-long study. The Pre- and Post-Election Surveys file contains the traditional election survey data. Contextual measures are provided along with the survey data, and include election returns, interest group ratings of incumbents, and Federal Election Commission campaign contribution data.

The American National Election Studies (ANES) 2020 Social Media Study is a two-wave panel survey conducted on the Internet to provide data about voting and public opinion in the 2020 presidential election and to link these survey data with data downloaded from participants' Facebook accounts. The two-wave design mirrors the "https://electionstudies.org/" Target="_blank">ANES Time Series design, with pre-election and post-election questionnaires. This release contains only survey data and 'vote validation' data; data from the linked Facebook accounts will become available separately in the future.

Though the study features pre-election and post-election surveys, this study should not be confused with the ANES 2020 Time Series Study, which also includes pre- and post-election surveys on the Internet with a higher response rate, different and longer questionnaires, and a different and larger sample than this study.

This study is part of a time-series collection of national surveys fielded continuously since 1948, and designed to present data on Americans' social backgrounds, enduring political predispositions, social and political values, perceptions and evaluations of groups and candidates, opinions on questions of public policy, and participation in political life. Content areas targeted for special attention were respondents' party identification, their attitudes regarding public policy issues, public perceptions of, and responses to political leadership, as well as the exploration of social networks in the crystallization of the vote choice. The Major Panel File (P1-P4), presents a year-long four-wave panel. The timing of the waves corresponds to events in the election year cycle. The panel began in late January 1980 (P-1) as a national cross-section of 1,008 cases, and interviewing ended before the New Hampshire primary on February 24, 1980. Respondents from the first wave were re-interviewed in June (P-2) immediately after the last set of primary elections that were held on June 3, 1980. The third panel interview (P-3) was conducted during the month of September 1980. The fourth and final wave (P-4) was conducted immediately after the general election and includes re-interviews with respondents who did not participate in Wave 3. Wave 4 was a fifteen-minute telephone interview, covering mainly the respondents' vote preferences and participation in the election campaign. Contextual information is included in the dataset.