Introducing the Transcripts of US Presidential Debates Data Set

Abstract

Presidential debates have become an important part of the US electoral system. This paper describes a new data set of debate transcripts which makes it much easier to use new text analytic methods to describe and classify debate content. The data set includes transcripts of all presidential and vice-presidential debates, along with a selection of primary candidate debates. The data set also includes useful speaker-level and debate-level variables.

Keywords: presidential debates, campaigns, elections