A Global Voting Advice Application for the US Election Aimed at Foreign Audiences

Billions of people outside of the US hold a vested interest in the outcome of US presidential elections, despite not being allowed to vote. We developed 9 Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) for the 2020 elections and 5 VAAs for the 2024 elections in partnership with leading newspapers across Europe, Asia, and Oceania. Across these two elections, the VAA tools offered 724,294 users from 187 countries an issue-based comparison with Biden and Trump in 2020, and with Trump and Harris in 2024. Users answered demographic questions, the issue statements, and additional attitudinal items. These issue statements covered both domestic topics and topics of the US' foreign policy. The candidates' positions were coded using robust primary and secondary sources on 29 (2020) and 62 (2024) issue statements. In this paper, we describe the candidates' placement data as well as the user data generated by these VAAs, offering an unprecedented opportunity to analyze global perceptions of US politics and the election's far-reaching influence on international relations.