The Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) is changing the way high-quality survey data are collected among racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Through collaboration and inclusiveness, the CMPS also broadens the scope of who has access to high-quality survey data in academia and beyond. In spring 2016, scholars around the country were invited to join a cooperative to self-fund the survey through the purchase of question content by contributors. Led by co-Principal Investigators Matt Barreto (UCLA), Lorrie Frasure-Yokley (UCLA), Edward Vargas (Arizona State University), and Janelle Wong (University of Maryland–College Park), the 2016 CMPS represents the first cooperative, multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, post-election online survey in race, ethnicity, and politics (REP) in the United States. All questions were generated through funding contributions from a national team of more than 85 researchers from 55 colleges and universities across 17 academic disciplines.
More than producing a unique national-survey dataset, the CMPS builds a diverse academic pipeline of scholars in political science and the social sciences more broadly. In the two years after the launch of the 2016 CMPS, we brought together through research collaborations, workshops, and writing retreats a diverse and multidisciplinary group of more than 150 researchers at varying stages of their academic career. What sets the CMPS project apart from other cooperative surveys? First, we focus on obtaining a diverse sample representing a range of racial and ethnic groups, using an in-language survey format (including several Asian languages). Second, and most important, the project is dedicated to recruiting and supporting collaborators from non-R1 universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI).
For the 2016 CMPS, we queried 10,145 people in five languages: English, Spanish, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Korean, and Vietnamese. The 2016 CMPS included large and generalizable samples of blacks (n=3,102), Latinos (n=3,003), Asian and Pacific Islanders (n=3,006), and whites (n=1,034), which allowed for an individual racial group analysis or comparative analysis across groups. The result of the project was a unique survey that included a broad range of survey questions emanating from a diversity of disciplines, including political science, sociology, psychology, public health, American studies, Latino studies, African American studies, and Asian American studies. Our article, “Best Practices in Collecting Online Data with Asian, Black, Latino, and White Respondents: Evidence from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey,” describes our sampling methods, including a stratified listed/density quota-sampling approach to multilingual surveys with large racial/ethnic minority samples (Barreto et al. Reference Barreto, Frasure-Yokley, Vargas and Wong2018).
In addition to individual-level data, contributors received several data enhancements (e.g., aggregate-level contextual data) to merge into the 2016 dataset. A full list of contributors from 2016, access to topline results, and other materials are available via a public website developed to share information and publications using the CMPS (www.cmpsurvey.org).
All of the contributors and their coauthors share the entire dataset—including access to all 394 questions—to promote dynamic collaborations through coauthorships and research opportunities, particularly for undergraduate and graduate students, post-docs, and junior and senior faculty.
Our 2016 CMPS contributors and their coauthors have published more than 15 academic articles and research-oriented opinion pieces using 2016 CMPS data, with many others in the pipeline. With questions that focus explicitly on race/ethnicity, public policies, public opinion—and the inclusion of large samples of racial and ethnic groups, US- and foreign-born respondents, and voters and nonvoters—the 2016 CMPS provides essential empirical information on the state of modern politics in an increasingly diverse United States.
With questions that focus explicitly on race/ethnicity, public policies, public opinion—and the inclusion of large samples of racial and ethnic groups, US- and foreign-born respondents, and voters and nonvoters—the 2016 CMPS provides essential empirical information on the state of modern politics in an increasingly diverse United States.
Expanding the Academic Pipeline in REP through Workshops, Writing Retreats, and Networking Opportunities
In the summers of 2017 and 2018, a diverse group of more than 100 scholars gathered at UCLA for a two-day CMPS Summer Research Workshop and Planning Meeting. This meeting also served as a research, professional-development, and networking opportunity for REP scholars and community leaders outside of academia. The CMPS Workshop was funded by the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Centennial Center, the National Science Foundation and other cosponsors.
Among attendees who submitted a postworkshop evaluation form, the majority were from underrepresented minority backgrounds. More than half identified as first-generation college graduates, meaning that they are the first in their family to earn a degree from a four-year university. Of the attendees that responded, 22% had attended an HBCU or HSI and almost one in four currently teach at a predominantly minority-serving institution.
In addition to the UCLA workshops, in June 2018, Lorrie Frasure-Yokley and Tyson-King Meadows (University of Maryland–Baltimore County) hosted a two-day writing retreat for the “Collaborative Writing and Publishing Working Group in the Study of Black Politics” using 2016 CMPS data at APSA headquarters in Washington, DC. By securing funding from the APSA Edward Artinian Fund for Publishing, the organizers brought together an intergenerational group of 22 scholars who worked in research teams using data from the 2016 CMPS. This writing-retreat format serves as a model for other research groups using the CMPS data to meet, collaborate, and guide their projects to publication.
Preparing for The 2020 CMPS
The 2020 CMPS will continue and expand the highly successful, groundbreaking 2016 CMPS, which broadened the scope of access to high-quality national-survey data with large and generalizable samples of racial and ethnic groups in the United States. The 2020 CMPS aims to increase the sample size from 10,000 to an estimated 20,000 cases, including but not limited to the following groups: Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, whites, Muslim Americans, black Caribbean immigrants, black African immigrants, Native Americans, and Native Hawaiians.
The 2020 CMPS will continue to invest time and resources in the professional development of an inclusive group of scholars—particularly women, underrepresented minority and first-generation students, junior faculty, and postdoctoral fellows—through conferences and workshops, as well as sustained mentorship, research, and publishing opportunities. These efforts build on the proven success of the 2016 CMPS and will continue to help scholars meet their full potential as the next generation of data innovators and researchers.
