Press and researchers

What the site is, how to cite it, and what its figures can and can't support. Questions about a figure or the methods: press (at) uscongressvsvoters.org.

In one paragraph

US Congress vs Voters shows how every member of the House and Senate voted, and, where large independent surveys asked people about the same bills, how each member's vote compared with what most people in their state or district said. Votes come from the official House and Senate records; opinion comes from published surveys such as the Cooperative Election Study and Nationscape, with each estimate shown with its likely range. It's an independent civic project, not affiliated with any party, campaign, government body or survey organization. It takes no advertising and doesn't track visitors. The code is public.

Pages you can link to

• Every member has a page at an address like uscongressvsvoters.org/members/ted-cruz/, listed on All members. Shared links show a preview card with the member's figures.
• Every state has a page at an address like uscongressvsvoters.org/states/texas/, listed on All states: its delegation side by side and what its residents told each survey.
• Every vote loaded is on All votes, each linked to its official record.
• Two members side by side: Compare.

Screenshots and the preview images are free to use with credit. Pages show the date their figures were built; the interactive views always show the latest.

How to cite

US Congress vs Voters, "page title," uscongressvsvoters.org, accessed date.

When you cite a survey figure, please also name the survey (for example, "estimates from the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, via US Congress vs Voters"). The survey teams did the work of asking.

What the figures do and don't show

• "Voted with the majority" is a comparison, not a grade. Members weigh their judgment, the details of a bill and promises to voters. The site leaves the judgment to readers.
• Only exact matches are counted. A vote counts only when Congress voted on the same proposal the survey asked about. Votes on related bills are shown, labeled, and never counted.
• Each survey stands alone. Sources are never combined into one score, because they ask different questions at different times.
• Estimates have ranges. District figures lean on statewide answers and Census data where few people were surveyed. Where the likely range crosses 50%, the vote is "too close to call" and isn't counted either way. Methods explains each step.
• Coverage is limited to what surveys asked. Most votes in Congress were never surveyed, so a member's count covers a small number of major bills.

Corrections

Every report is checked against the original source, and every figure that was wrong is fixed and listed in the corrections log. Write to corrections (at) uscongressvsvoters.org.

How the site is built

One person maintains the site and decides what it uses and shows. Much of the code is written by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, at the maintainer's direction; no AI is involved when you use the site. See About.