Candidate support data — Support IDs, favorability, and approval survey questions submitted by field programs across the ecosystem — is the most-used data in the Exchange, and Nexus gives you several ways to subscribe to it. This article covers the configuration patterns that get full coverage, including for programs spanning multiple states.
The core principle: office-level coverage first
A common approach is to subscribe by office level rather than by candidate name. Configure the Candidate category with your Government Level and Office set (for example, Federal + US House, or President, Governor, State House, and State Senate for a full state program) and Candidate Name left at All. Many question formats come through without specific candidate names and use generic support scales. These “Democrat” questions are often used by progressive-aligned organizations and using office-level scoping captures all of it. Filtering by name alone can often mean missing most of the relevant data for your geography.
Adding named candidates: the dual configuration
For races where you specifically need questions that expressly name your target candidates, add a second layer rather than replacing the first. After saving your office-level configuration, click Add Another Data Type, select Candidate again, and this time select your specific candidates under Candidate Name. Stacked together, the two layers give you both: guaranteed capture of named-candidate questions, plus the broad coverage of everything that never names a name.
Multi-state programs: one subscription, not five
Previously, organizations running programs across multiple states needed a separate subscription per state. In Nexus, add every state in the geography selector and they all live in one subscription. To narrow further, select specific congressional districts instead of full states. If your program is targeting five US House races across three states can scope to exactly those five districts in a single subscription.
The full workflow
- Click “New! Get Data.” On Set Scope, add your states or districts and set your date range — leave the end date at No End Date so new candidate data flows automatically as it enters the Exchange.
- Select Survey Questions and choose Subscription.
- Configure Candidate at the office level (Government Level + Office, Candidate Name at All). Save.
- Optionally, click Add Another Data Type and add select the named candidate(s) in the Candidate configuration. Save.
- On Summary & Confirm, choose your output format. Response and Contact History gives you row-level detail for each response — the right choice for analysis and pipeline enrichment; List of Voters is the right choice when you only need the universe. Name the subscription descriptively (e.g., “US House Candidate Support — PA, NV, OH”) and click Activate.
- The subscription appears immediately on the Data Exports page — use View Details to confirm the parameters.
- The Data will be available in your next subscription run.