CandidateBio.getBio: Get a candidate's main biographical information

Description Usage Arguments Value Author(s) References Examples

Description

This function is a wrapper for the CandidateBio.getBio() method of the PVS API CandidateBio class which grabs the main biographical information for each candidate. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all candidate IDs given as a function input, extracts the XML values from the returned XML file(s) and returns them arranged in one data frame.

Usage

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CandidateBio.getBio(candidateId, separate=FALSE)

Arguments

candidateId

a character string or list of character strings with the candidate ID(s) (see references for details)

separate

logical, indicates whether all subnodes should be returned separately (default:FALSE, returns one data frame)

Value

A data frame with a row for each candidate and columns with the following variables describing the candidate:
bio.candidate.crpId (OpenSecrets ID),
bio.candidate.firstName,
bio.candidate.nickName,
bio.candidate.middleName,
bio.candidate.lastName,
bio.candidate.suffix,
bio.candidate.birthDate,
bio.candidate.birthPlace,
bio.candidate.pronunciation,
bio.candidate.gender,
bio.candidate.family,
bio.candidate.photo,
bio.candidate.homeCity,
bio.candidate.homeState,
bio.candidate.education,
bio.candidate.profession,
bio.candidate.political,
bio.candidate.religion,
bio.candidate.congMembership,
bio.candidate.orgMembership,
bio.candidate.specialMsg,
bio.office.parties,
bio.office.title,
bio.office.shortTitle,
bio.office.name,
bio.office.type,
bio.office.status,
bio.office.firstElect,
bio.office.lastElect,
bio.office.nextElect,
bio.office.termStart,
bio.office.termEnd,
bio.office.district,
bio.office.districtId,
bio.office.stateId,
bio.office.committee*.committeeId,
bio.office.committee*.committeeName,
bio.election*.office,
bio.election*.officeId,
bio.election*.officeType,
bio.election*.parties,
bio.election*.district,
bio.election*.districtId,
bio.election*.status,
bio.election*.ballotName.

Author(s)

Ulrich Matter <ulrich.matter-at-unibas.ch>

References

http://api.votesmart.org/docs/CandidateBio.html
Use Candidates.getByOfficeState(), Candidates.getByOfficeTypeState(), Candidates.getByLastname(), Candidates.getByLevenshtein(), Candidates.getByElection(), Candidates.getByDistrict() or Candidates.getByZip() to get a list of candidate IDs.
See also: Matter U, Stutzer A (2015) pvsR: An Open Source Interface to Big Data on the American Political Sphere. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0130501. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130501

Examples

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# First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as an option
# (options("pvs.key" = "yourkey")) or in the pvs.key variable:
## Not run: pvs.key <- "yourkey"
# get main biographical data on Barack Obama and Mitt Romney
## Not run: bio <- CandidateBio.getBio(list(9490,21942))
## Not run: bio

umatter/pvsR documentation built on Jan. 9, 2021, 4:35 p.m.