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The availability of rich survey data, and concerns over the ecological fallacy, have led voting researchers to focus on the explanation of individual voting decisions at the expense of accounting for patterns of aggregate election outcomes. This has skewed our understanding of the relative importance of various factors in the electoral process. A framework for analysis of elections at multiple levels is developed and applied using data from twenty-three exit polls from the US Senate elections. Comparable parameters for a simple voting model are estimated for individual voting and for election outcomes. Election-level factors, especially candidates' issue strategies and incumbency, are substantially more important in accounting for election outcomes than in explaining individual voting decisions. Finally, working with election outcomes permits an estimate of a path model of Senate election outcomes that shows key relationships that are not accessible from individual level data.

The data presented here were initially compiled as part of a background report for the May 19–20, 1980, meeting for oversight review of the NSF Political Science Program. These data on proposed loads, funding levels, and success rates are from the Foundation's proposal information data base. In sharp contrast to the criteria by which proposals submitted to the Program are reviewed, my goal here is purely desriptive. No attempt at explanation is ventured here beyond indicating a few specifics that seem important in interpreting changes in the data series.

The Political Science Program at the National Science Foundation provides support for basic empirical and theoretical research on political institutions and processes. The goal of the program is to facilitate the development of scientific theory and knowledge on political behavior, the operation of political systems, and the actions of governments. The program seeks to meet this goal by supporting research on a very wide range of substantive topics falling under the rubric of politics. As part of its long-range planning, the program attempts to identify areas of intellectual growth for program emphases. In making funding decisions, however, the determining factor is the scientific merit of the proposed work rather than topical or methodological closeness to the major emphases in program plans.Support for basic political science research has been growing at a faster rate than overall NSF support for the social sciences. From fiscal 1977 to 1979 the Political Science Program allocation grew 35 percent compared to a 17 percent increase in the overall funding for the Division of Social and Economic Science.