2024 Time Series Study

About the Preliminary Release

• Total number of interviews: 3,349 pre-election interviews, all from the Fresh Cross-Sectional Sample
• 1,042 in-person sample interviews (966 face-to-face, 76 phone)
• 2,307 web sample interviews (2,063 internet, 244 paper)

This data release in February 2025 is the preliminary release of the pre-election data from the ANES 2024 Time Series Study. The file serves analysts who want to start working with these data as soon as possible.

The current release does not include data from the post-election interviews, from the General Social Survey sample, from the 2016-20-24 panel sample, or from the survey administered to cohabiting spouses or partners of sampled individuals. These data will be included in future releases.

In addition to excluding these data, pre-election data in this preliminary release differ from final ANES data releases in several important ways. For instance, quality control review, summary variables, and documentation are abbreviated.

The weights included in this pre-election dataset release are preliminary and will be replaced with new weights in future releases. In particular, we are evaluating ways to refine the weights in order to match known population demographic values and electoral results.

About the Study

• Type of study: ANES Time Series Study

Fresh Cross-Sectional Sample

• Sample universe: U.S. eligible voters (cross-section)
• Sample composition: fresh cross-section cases
• Number of waves: 2 (pre-eIection, post-election)
• Modes used: in-person, internet, video, phone, and mail

ANES 2016-2020-2024 Panel Sample

• Sample universe: ANES 2016 internet and face-to-face post-election respondents who completed the 2020 post-election study
• Sample composition: ANES 2016-2020 respondents
• Number of waves: 2 (pre-eIection, post-election)
• Modes used: internet

ANES-GSS 2024 Joint Study Sample:

• Sample universe: General Social Survey (GSS) 2024 respondents who completed GSS prior to July 21
• Sample composition: GSS 2024 respondents
• Number of waves: 2 (pre-election, post-election)
• Modes used: internet

Study Content Highlights

The 2024 study will offers new content on the following topics: election integrity, democratic norms, attitudes toward higher education, traits that might disqualify candidates from public office, attitudes about conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, job satisfaction, MENA descent, disability and mental health, student debt, gender identity, attitudes on changes to the Democratic ticket, political socialization of children, issue importance and issue ownership, an adaptive voter validation module, and expanded instrumentation on abortion attitudes.

Study Design Highlights

Data collection for the ANES 2024 Time Series Study pre-election survey ran from August 1, 2024 through November 5, 2024 (Election Day). The post-election study is running from November 7, 2024 through February 19, 2025.

The ANES 2024 Time Series Study is a mixed-mode design featuring a fresh cross-sectional sample. For the pre-election data collection, respondents were recruited with address-based sampling, and data was collected in parallel from in-person and internet samples, with a push-to-mail component for internet non-responders. For the post-election data collection, respondents who completed the pre-election survey in person were invited to complete the survey via live video interviews. Web and mail respondents completed the post-election survey in the same mode as the pre-election survey.

In addition to the fresh cross-sectional sample, the ANES 2024 Study continued to follow its 2016 respondents for a third election, featuring an online data collection before and after the election for a 2016 – 2020 – 2024 panel of ANES respondents. The 2024 study also collected pre-election data from GSS respondents. Finally, the 2024 ANES Time Series Study interviewed the spouses and cohabiting partners of the ANES 2024 fresh cross-sectional respondents using a brief instrument that will be appended to the cross-sectional data.

Weights Summary

Analyses should be weighted to accurately represent the population. Sampling error calculations should account for the complex sample design and the effects of weighting on variance. The data can be analyzed using the face-to-face sample alone, the web sample alone (with paper cases excluded), the face-to-face and web samples combined, the web sample with paper cases included, or all of these groups combined (face-to-face, web, and paper). For more information about weighting, please refer to the User Guide.

Citation

American National Election Studies. 2025. ANES 2024 Time Series Study Preliminary Release: Pre-Election Data [dataset and documentation]. February 19, 2025 version. www.electionstudies.org