Georgia 2024 State Legislative Upper Candidate Race and Gender Data ## RDH Date Retrieval 04/10/25 ## Sources Candidate names, gender, and many URLs procured from Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia:Buy_Political_Data. Race data for some congressional incumbents provided by 538: https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/primary-project-2022. Sources for each candidate can be found in the dataset. ## Fields: Field Name Description Elect_date Election Date Elect_type Election Type Office Legislative Office State State District Legislative District Cand_id Unique Candidate ID Cand_name Candidate Name Party Political Party Incumbent Candidate Incumbency Canc_prim Primary Election Cancelled Canc_gen General Election Cancelled Canc_both Primary and General Elections Cancelled Gender Candidate Gender Race_1 Candidate Race 1 Race_1_Eth Candidate Ethnicity 1 Race_1_source Source to Determine Race 1 Race_1_conf Confidence Level Associated with Race 1 Determination Race_1_URL Source URL for Race 1 Race_2 Candidate Race 2 Race_2_Eth Candidate Ethnicity 2 Race_2_source Source to Determine Race 2 Race_2_conf Confidence Level Associated with Race 2 Determination Race_2_URL Source URL for Race 2 Oth_id Other identities of interest (if available) Notes Notes from RDH researcher ## Notes on Field Names Office Codes Used: SLDL - State Legislative Lower SLDU - State Legislative Upper CONG - Congressional Cand_id column generally follows the pattern, adapted from VEST: The first character is G for a general election, P for a primary, S for a special, and R for a runoff. Characters 2 and 3 are the year of the election.* Characters 4-6 represent the office type (SL = State Legislative Lower, SU = State Legislative Upper, CON = Congressional) Character 7 represents the party of the candidate. Characters 8-10 are the first three letters of the candidate's last name. One example is: PSL001RHIL *To fit within the GIS 10 character limit for field names, the naming convention is slightly different for the State Legislature and US House of Representatives. All fields are listed below with definitions. One example is: PSL001RHIL Party Codes Used: DEM - Democratic REP - Republican NPA - No Party Affiliation Canc_prim, Canc_gen, Canc_both Codes Used: 1 = True 0 = False Gender Codes Used: M - Male F - Female O - Other N/A - Not Available Race_1, Race_2 Codes Used: AIAN - American Indian or Alaska Native BLK - Black or African-American HISP - Hispanic/Latino NHPI - Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander WHT - White or Caucasian MENA - Middle Eastern or Northern African ASN - Asian OTH - Other N/A - Not Available Race_1_Eth, Race_2_Eth Codes Used: Uses the exact spelling from the list of possible ethnicities in Appendix F of the US Census PL technical documentation starting on pg. 193 (https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/technical-documentation/complete-tech-docs/summary-file/2020Census_PL94_171Redistricting_StatesTechDoc_English.pdf#page=193) Race_1_source, Race_2_source Codes Used: CAND - race/ethnicity or gender is reported or clearly implied by the candidate GRP - membership in a racial or ethnic group caucus or organization, or endorsement by a racial or ethnic group GUES - race/ethnicity or gender is assumed, usually based on a photo, the candidate’s name, and other sources of information NEWS - a news article ORG - race/ethnicity or gender is provided by a nonpartisan third party organization VF - voter file OTH - anything else N/A - Not Available Race_1_conf, Race_2_conf Codes Used: HIGH - high confidence in assuming the race/ethnicity of the person MED - medium confidence in assuming the race/ethnicity of the person LOW - low confidence in assuming the race/ethnicity of the person N/A - Not available or applicable (candidate race determined by something other than guessing) Oth_id Codes Used: CHR - Christian MUS - Muslim HIN - Hindu BUD - Buddhist JUD - Jewish CATH - Catholic OTH - Other religion LES - Lesbian GAY - Gay BIS - Bisexual TRA - Transgender QUE - Queer IMM - First generation immigrant VET - Veteran INT - Intersex ## Data Collection Notes Please note that although we produced this file to be as accurate as possible, we may come across additional information in the future which may require us to update this file. RDH began with a list of candidates from Ballotpedia. RDH staff then researched each candidate, examining campaign and official websites, news articles, and photos on Ballotpedia. We prioritized race/ethnicity from the candidate when available, and otherwise third party sources such as group affiliation or data provided by other nonpartisan organizations. In many cases, data from these sources was not available, and in those situations we made guesses based on candidate name and/or appearance. Our guesses are accompanied by a confidence level. We utilized the 2022 candidate data available from 538, as both a source of race/ethnicity and validation. We also validated female candidates against the data from Center for American Women in Politics. Whenever possible, staff archived non-Ballotpedia links source using the WaybackMachine browser extension to ensure users can access sources even if they are taken offline. The list of candidates for this dataset was derived from RDH's processed 2024 Georgia Primary and General Election Returns. When candidates appeared in both the Primary and General, we used the primary data for Election Date, Election Type, and Candidate ID. This dataset does not include information on write-in candidates. ## Additional Notes Please direct questions related to processing this dataset to info@redistrictingdatahub.org.