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Americans have strong opinions about politics but don’t really want to talk about them. The researchers at the American National Election Studies (ANES) are trying to get them to talk anyway.

Democrats and Republicans, the two major political parties in the United States, have been developing hard feelings toward each other for at least a generation. At no point in history have supporters of each party thought of supporters of the opposite party less warmly. But there hasn’t been a specific inflection point. The data shows this isn’t the result of any particular rhetoric, policy proposal, or even an individual politician. And as time goes by, voters are less and less willing to talk to researchers about their political opinions, creating the possibility of a blind spot in available data on American political attitudes, all while there is less funding available than ever to collect the data needed to make the studies run.

“Those are very significant threats, not just to the American National Election Studies, but to any large-scale infrastructure project exploring social dynamics in general, not just in the political domain,” said Nicholas Valentino, one of four current principal investigators at the ANES.

Maintaining the quality of ANES data is an enormous challenge under those conditions. The strength of the ANES is its long-term continuity; researchers at Michigan began systematically studying American voters in 1948. A gap in the time series due to a lapse in funding would be a serious blow to the overall continuity of the project.

Even if funding is available, motivating respondents to actually provide their opinions to a stranger has become a much bigger problem, albeit one not necessarily unique to the ANES. Researchers across many fields in the social sciences have reported more and more difficulty in collecting data as people express reluctance to speak with those conducting surveys. Fortunately, ANES researchers are searching for solutions and implementing them wherever they can, starting with a multi-modal approach to data collection: by offering multiple modes of interviewing, respondents can participate in the way they feel most comfortable. The ANES surveys voters through face-to-face conversations, telephone interviews, and even paper-and-pencil surveys, an old-school approach to the increasingly modern problem of a fractured electorate.

The deeper issue, however, demands even more creativity. Through collaboration with other major studies, ANES has found ways to overcome an even more pressing problem: fewer and fewer people are willing to share their information with researchers, particularly ones associated with a major university. But through careful weighting and pre-screening, ANES has been able to identify the opinions of those on one side of the aisle or the other who are reluctant to respond, representing their voices in the overall data even if they may be reluctant to speak with researchers directly. 

ANES researchers also safeguard their relationship with the public through careful methodological transparency, one of the most important dimensions of the ANES legacy. The ANES makes its data and methodology publicly available on its website. Anyone with interest and enough motivation can sort through the data, explore the ways in which it was collected, and try to understand the trends and forces ANES researchers are studying every day. That, hopefully, will play a part in the ultimate goal of any democracy: to increase turnout and participation, which leads to a more representative government.

Ultimately, ANES has the same goal. Better turnout and more participation only increases the quality of ANES data, leading to better insights about American voters, their habits and beliefs, and what they want to see in the world. Whatever the answer to those questions might be, ANES continues to search for ways to stay in touch with the American people, even if they’re not particularly eager to talk. And if the challenge of reluctant respondents remains, Valentino says that’s just a part of the research. The ANES will keep doing what it can to represent all data as objectively as possible. After all, scientific objectivity is crucial for building trust and support in projects like the ANES that rely on public funding.

“Our job as social scientists is to describe and explain the world as it is and why it is the way it is, not to change it.”

Contact: Jon Meerdink ([email protected])