How it works

Who we are

An independent, nonpartisan project. We take no money from candidates, parties, PACs, or campaigns, and we don't coordinate with them.

The questions

You rate 11 statements from strongly disagree to strongly agree. For some statements, agreeing is the more conservative view; for others, it's the more progressive one. That's on purpose, so the quiz doesn't lean either way.

Abortion should be legal in most or all cases.
Background checks should be required for all gun sales, including private sales between individuals.
The government should increase deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally, including those with no criminal record.
Families should be able to use public money to pay for private school tuition.
Medicaid should be expanded to cover more low-income adults.
Energy policy should prioritize oil, natural gas, and other on-demand power over wind and solar.
Government should act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even if it raises energy costs.
It should be harder for people accused of violent crimes to be released on bail before trial.
Recreational marijuana should be legal for adults.
The minimum wage should be raised above the federal $7.25 an hour.
Voting should be made easier, for example with online voter registration and wider mail-in voting.

Candidate positions

For each candidate, we look for public positions on each statement in their campaign website, voting record, public statements, debates, and candidate questionnaires. Every position shown links to its source. If we can't find one, we show “No public position found” and leave that issue out of the match. We never fill in a position based on party.

Words in quotation marks are the candidate's own. Other text is our short summary of the source, so follow the link to read it in full. Research is assisted by AI. Positions a person has reviewed are marked verified. Ones still waiting are labeled “Not yet human-verified.”

Review so far: a person has verified 0 of 2,732 positions. Check the source for anything that matters to you.

The match score

For each issue that both you and the candidate have a position on, we score how close you are: same answer scores 100%, one step apart 75%, two steps 50%, three steps 25%, opposite ends 0%. Each issue counts 1×, 2×, or 3× depending on how much you said it matters. The match is the weighted average.

Next to each score we show how many issues it's based on. When a candidate shares fewer than 3 issues with you, we don't show a percentage at all, because a high match on 1 or 2 issues would mislead. Candidates are listed by match. Ties, and candidates without a match, are listed alphabetically by last name.

Your districts

We find your state and congressional district from your address using the U.S. Census geocoder. If you live very near a district line, or your state redrew its map recently, double-check your local sample ballot.

Where we cover

We started with the 40 largest metro areas by 2024 Census population estimates: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Washington, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Boston, Riverside, San Francisco, Detroit, Seattle, Minneapolis, Tampa, San Diego, Denver, Orlando, Charlotte, Baltimore, St. Louis, San Antonio, Austin, Portland, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Columbus, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Nashville, San Jose, Virginia Beach, Jacksonville, Providence, Milwaukee.

U.S. House: districts with at least 25% of their land in those metro areas, plus all of Texas, where this project began. Governor and U.S. Senate: statewide in every state that has part of one of those metro areas, if that state votes on the office in 2026. The same rule applies to every party. Research on some candidates is still underway, so a race can appear with no match yet.

Our coverage doesn't reach every voter yet. Addresses outside these states, and districts mostly outside these metro areas, may show fewer races or none, and the page says so when that happens.

Exception: we don't show Missouri House races, including those in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas. Courts restored the state's earlier map for this election, and the Census district data we use doesn't reflect that.

What we don't cover yet

Other state offices, legislative, judicial, and local races, and ballot measures. Find those on your local sample ballot or Vote411.

Something wrong?

Send a correction with a source using this form.