What were they thinking?! Exploring America’s voting preferences and attitudes using the American Na
Channel: Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian Webinars
Date: 20/07/2020

In the midst of another heated presidential election cycle, we all see regular news headlines referencing who’s leading the horserace in the latest polls. Few of us, though, tend to dig any deeper to understand why our fellow Americans ultimately choose to vote (or not) the way they do. In this webinar, I’ll introduce the basics of political opinion polling, highlight some major sources, and discuss some of the pitfalls to watch out for when assessing poll results. Then, I’ll lead you through an exploration of what we can learn about Americans’ voting preferences and political attitudes using data from the American National Election Study (ANES). Funded by the NSF, the ANES is the gold standard in U.S. election polls and one of the richest sources of voting attitudes we have, with data on elections going back to 1948. The powerpoint presentation is also available: https://cornell.box.com/s/uqkkrl3zd5k1251zhms7lfw5z7k8g2bk


Jeremy Darrington is the Politics Librarian at the Princeton University Library. He has a BA in international studies from Brigham Young University and graduate degrees in library and information science from the University of Washington and in political science from UC Berkeley. He is a past chair of the Politics, Policy, and International Relations Section of ACRL, and he recently received the Marta Lange/SAGE-CQ Press Award for “distinguished contributions to librarianship in political science.” Jeremy’s interests include political science data sources, European politics, information and technology policy, and government information. Jeremy is happily married and the proud father of four children.