DIY Candidate Research

A step by step guide to collecting data based on the methods used in Digital Ground Game's midterm reports

While putting together the most recent Digital Ground Game midterms report, it occurred to me that there will be plenty of important elections this season I won’t have time to cover in my regular monthly reports. Although I’d like to have faith in the research capabilities of the average voter, the reality is that in our current political ecosystem, it can be difficult for even politically engaged people to know where to start when looking for reliable information. With this in mind, I’ll lay out the sites I frequently use when writing about candidates and what types of information you can pull from each source. While my process is by no means perfect, the average person deliberating who to vote for should find it more than sufficient.

Ballotpedia

Ballotpedia ^[1] is a great starting point for election research, especially for those who aren't sure what is even on the ballot yet. Ballotpedia is dedicated to tracking all voting issues nationwide from the presidential election down to ballot measures and local races. When searching for your local election online, I recommend using this format: 

(state) (elected position) race (election year) Ballotpedia

Example: Ohio U.S. Senate race 2026 Ballotpedia

The top of the page provides a brief description of the election and highlights current events that are having an impact on the campaigns. Below the election overview, you’ll find a list of candidates participating in the general election along with their party affiliations. Scrolling down further, the primary elections are displayed. If the incumbent candidate is running to retain their seat, their name will be bold and underlined on the candidate lists. Clicking on a candidate’s name will take you to their candidate profile.

Keep in mind that while Ballotpedia has profile writers, part of the information is self-submitted, so not all listed candidates have completed profile pages; I encountered this with one of the Alaska gubernatorial candidates, Bernadette Wilson. Profile pages usually contain the candidate’s education and work history. One of the features I’ve found most useful is how comprehensive their documentation is of the congressional record for candidates who have previously held office. These records include which congressional committees the candidate served on and all votes taken during their term. The information you should expect to find on Ballotpedia is the list of candidates participating in a race, a rudimentary run-down of their credentials, and, in the case of incumbents, a summary of their congressional record.

Polling Websites

In circumstances where there are many candidates of the same party, I’d advise looking at polling to identify which candidates have a chance before doing further research. Polling is never foolproof, but it can help you avoid wasting time researching candidates that won’t break 5% voter share. Especially for federal elections, the easiest first stop is The New York Times’ poll tracker ^[2]. Here’s the search format I recommend:

(state) (elected position) (election year) polling nyt

Example: Ohio U.S. Senate 2026 polling nyt

Once on the site, you’ll see a list of recent polls tracking the race,  as shown in the image above. By default, only the leading candidate's margin will be shown, but clicking a poll will expand it to show each candidate's results. If The New York Times isn’t to your liking, some people prefer RealClearPolling ^[3]; just keep in mind its reputation for Republican bias.

Campaign Websites

Once you’ve narrowed down the candidates to research, I recommend moving on to campaign sites. While the quality of campaign sites can be spotty, knowing how a candidate wants their voters to see them is often just as important as their actual policies. Generally, campaign sites will be split into three sections: a biography, a policy platform, and media highlights. The exact terms used to label these sections vary, but most sites will contain some version of each. I recommend this search format:

(candidate name) campaign website

Example: Jamie Ager campaign website

While bio pages sometimes just rehash the information on other sites, they’re worth at least skimming because candidates will sometimes mix policy-relevant tidbits into this section. Policy pages are a source that voters should view with skepticism. These pages primarily signal a candidate’s values to constituents, so their stated policy platforms aren't always realistic. Divining the seriousness of a stated policy can sometimes be difficult, but one helpful metric is how specifically a candidate lays out their plan to implement it. The news and press release sections, while not perfect, can reveal recent events or scandals that are not captured by the previously mentioned sources. Parsing campaign sites isn't an exact science. For those new to political research, it’ll take some practice getting used to extracting the information you want from them, but they act as an important source of what the candidate themselves wants voters to know. The information you should be pulling from candidate websites is how a candidate is presenting their policy platforms, an expansion on their background or credentials, and sometimes a look at their engagement with the media.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia ^[4] gets a bad rap for allowing community-sourced editing, but in my view, that perception is somewhat outdated; in reality, Wikipedia is generally a reliable source with a handful of exceptions. Highly contentious topics such as disputed political events or ongoing international conflicts have a tendency to be embroiled in edit wars, so it's best to avoid those subjects. However, for researching smaller politicians, I’ve found the article quality to be decently reliable. If something on a page sounds suspicious, you can always check the “history” or “talk” pages at the top of the Wiki article, where changes are listed and discussed, or you can seek out the source of the information listed at the bottom of the page.

In my research process, there are a few specific instances in which I will use Wikipedia. When beginning a new “State Highlight” section, the “Politics of (state)” article series, though not complete yet, is often a good starting point for getting a sense of the state’s political ecosystem. I’ll also check a politician’s personal article if I find that the previously mentioned sources lack information about them. My bottom-line suggestion is to use Wikipedia as a supplementary source if information elsewhere is scarce, or as an initial vibe check to give you an idea where to start.

News Publications

Publications are a source I generally seek out last as their consistency can vary depending on the public attention a candidate is getting.  There are a number of strategies you could use when searching for articles about a candidate, and each will likely return different results. The simplest approach would be to look through the articles linked to their campaign page, if they have a “news” tab. This will likely include things like interviews, but probably won't include negative press, so you should take it with a grain of salt. Another option is to look for negative stories directly with a search query like “(candidate name) scandal”. These could give you a picture of the recent discourse about a candidate, but are likely to be opposition research pieces, so they are often negatively biased. For the casual politics consumer, I generally wouldn't recommend seeking out news articles in general; parsing an article’s political bias can be tricky, and that's especially true for local publications. Extracting useful information from political articles is something that takes more practice than any of the other sources I've mentioned, so unless you are already familiar with the publication, exercise caution.

Conclusion

Research is a skill you train over time, so it’s important not to get discouraged or overwhelmed if you aren't immediately getting the results you are looking for. If I’ve accomplished anything here, I will have illuminated a low-barrier pathway for those new to research to learn about their local elections in an efficient way. I encourage readers who find this tutorial useful to bookmark the article so they can come back to it in the future as needed. If you have additional questions or feedback, I encourage you to reach out to me via the email on my author page.