Nationscape™

A comprehensive view of the American electorate

Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape^™ was one of the largest public opinion surveys ever conducted — interviewing people in nearly every county, congressional district, and mid-sized U.S. city in the leadup to and months following the 2020 election. Nationscape was fielded by Lucid.

Conducting nearly 500,000 interviews over 16 months, the survey sheds light on attitudes and issues as they took shape. Nationscape was designed to answer the questions most urgent to American democracy across multiple dimensions.

A bold endeavor, a deeper look

Nationscape captured a nuanced picture of the American electorate during a critical time. With it, researchers can explore the dynamics and intensity of preferences — in light of factors like partisanship, tribalism, and polarization. The intent of this endeavor was to understand voter choices, inform political discourse, and improve political representation across the country.

Nationscape was a featured project of Democracy Fund Voter Study Group in partnership with UCLA political scientists Lynn Vavreck and Chris Tausanovitch. It was fielded by Lucid, a leading market research platform.

Meet the Researchers

From Nationscape

Data

New Data from Nationscape and VOTER Survey

Dig deep on American policy views with a final data release from the massive Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Survey, plus three fresh waves of data from the longitudinal VOTER Survey.

Download the Data

Data

Nationscape Insights

Explore extensive, week-by-week survey data describing public opinion during the leadup to and aftermath of election 2020 — with interactive visualizations you can sort by race, gender, income, geography, education level, and political leanings.

Report

Crisis of Confidence

While it’s not unusual for a losing candidate’s supporters to express skepticism about election results, faith in election 2020 was much more polarized than in prior years. In this report, Robert Griffin and Mayesha Quasem detail key differences.

Blog

Faith in Elections Took a Big Hit in 2020

In a piece for The Washington Post, Robert Griffin and Mayesha Quasem share insights on the unusually steep drop in confidence in election integrity among Republicans after Joe Biden’s win.

Blog

The Changing Sway of Voter Attitudes Toward Muslims

Mayesha Quasem and Robert Griffin of Voter Study Group examine how views about Muslims have gotten less negative, and also less predictive of elections.

Our authors are using Nationscape to answer the questions most urgent to American democracy.

High-profile coverage informing the national narrative.

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