American Politics

Fabulous site containing lots of information on the presidency, especially a fully searchable database of the Papers of the Presidents back to Washington, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (Carter to G.W. Bush), and the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents (2009-current). Also has party platforms back to 1840, convention speeches, candidates' remarks, election debates back to 1960, executive orders and proclamations, presidential approval back to 1941, vetoes, state of the union addresses, press briefings, and more.

4th edition in this series of statistical compilation of data on the presidency. All the tables are available in spreadsheet format. Topics include Presidential selection, elections, public appearances, public opinion, presidential organization and the Executive Branch, Presidents in war and diplomacy, Presidential policymaking, Congressional relations, and the Presidency and the Judiciary.

This authoritative and exhaustive 2 volume reference (published 2012) covers all aspects of the history and development of the U.S. Presidency and Executive Branch. We have both print and online.

Provides state-level estimates of presidential approval (plus 7 other policy issues) using multilevel regression, imputation, and poststratification (MRP) from annual national polls. See Pacheco, Julianna. 2014. "Measuring and Evaluating Changes in State Opinion across Eight Issues." American Politics Research 42(6): 986-1009 https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X14524819. Data in Stata format.

Approval ratings for U.S. state governors (1958-2009), U.S. Senators (1978-2009), and U.S. Presidents (1945-2009 by state; nearly all states covered from 1992-2008; select coverage for early years back to the mid-70s). Data collected by Thad Beyle, Lee Sigelman, and Richard Niemi and now hosted by Jennifer Jensen as part of the U.S. Officials' Job Approval Ratings (JARs) Database; in .xls format.

An update to JARs that extends gubernatorial approval ratings from 1947-2020. Data includes year and month of the poll, state, party, governor last name, source, approval margins, net approval, and the relative approval rate.

Spreadsheet with nearly 6000 national presidential approval ratings, from FDR through Trump (as of Dec 2020). Earlier years are almost exclusively from Gallup; multiple sources from Bill Clinton forward. Data are at least quarterly for FDR, at least monthly through Reagan, and then at least weekly thereafter. In Excel format. Compiled by the Roper Center.

This 4th ed. of Vital Statistics has several spreadsheets covering national presidential approval, including annual average, quarterly, weekly, and by month as well as some of those periods broken down by sex, race, income, education, region, and party.

Data from Gallup's presidential approval measure and includes partisan approval from Truman through Obama. Mostly monthly in earlier periods, becoming more frequent over time. From Ghitza, Yair; Gelman, Andrew; Auerbach, Jonathan, 2022, "Replication Data for: The Great Society, Reagan's Revolution, and Generations of Presidential Voting." Data in R format.

Curated trend data by the Roper Center of aggregate responses to presidential job approval on different issues (e.g., taxes, foreign policy, health care, etc.) back to George H. W. Bush. Data can be downloaded in Excel.

Over 600 aggregate approval trend observations curated by the Roper Center, 1977-present. Data can be downloaded in Excel. See also additional approval trends on Congress (e.g., opinion of Republican party or approval of Congressional Democrats).

A monthly survey incorporating many of Gallup's long-running trend questions. Topics are arranged thematically by month, but each month includes presidential approval. Weighted for a national sample, but includes respondent's state, county, and zip code. Princeton has files from 2000-present. Gallup has information on methodology.

Data behind the site's election polling analysis. Aggregates polling marginals from numerous pollsters for presidential primary and general election, Senate, House, governor, presidential approval, and generic ballot polls for the current (and sometimes previous) electoral cycle (generally not before 2016). Also data on polling averages for presidential primary (1980-2020) and presidential general election (1980-2020). Data in .csv.

Aggregates poll results on US elections (generic ballot, President, House, Senate, and governors) and approval. Click on "Quick Poll/Map Links" at top to see listings archived back to 2004).

Link to search in Roper iPoll for polls on vote choice for president, 1935-present. Aggregate responses can be downloaded in Excel, 100 polls at a time.

Be sure to see our U.S. History Librarian's guide to the major documentary collections and other records on each of the presidents.

Official White House site providing text, photos, and video of statements, speeches, remarks, proclamations, executive orders, etc.

Extensive collection of presidential speeches from the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. Covers all administrations, many with audio and/or video.

Site by two professors (Baylor & Vanderbilt) containing text of major speeches by presidents and presidential candidates. Contains speeches back to Washington. Also contains a list, by president, of links to other sites with information on rhetoric and speeches of that president.

This dataset attempts to be a comprehensive listing of all pardons granted by United States presidents from Washington to Trump. In total, the dataset contains 77 variables and 32,026 cases. The data includes variables that provide the recipient's name of the pardon, the date the pardon was granted, the offense committed, details regarding fines and prison stays, along with other details regarding the recipient.

Contains all US presidential cabinet nominations—including nominees appointed, withdrawn, and rejected—from 1789 to the present. Contains “service dates, notable scandals, education, military service, foreign birth, known minority and gender status, whether the appointee died in office, and the senate confirmation vote tallies.” Data in .csv.

Captures the status of Presidential Appointments with Senate confirmation (PAS) positions (e.g., empty, interim appointee, permanent appointee), the positions’ capacity to control policy outcomes (low vs. high), and a measure of the Senate’s and president’s policy priorities for an agency's policy-making (neutral/expand/contract) across all fifteen Executive Departments from 1977 to 2016, covering over 11,000 position-year observations. Data in tab delimited format.