What's My Politics is a civic research tool for people in the United States. It turns your answers into a plain-English political profile, then helps you compare that profile with public records and research the real choices on your ballot.
Start here
Quick start
- Open What's My Politics.
- Create an account with email and password, or use Google sign-in. Verify the email account when the app sends the link.
- Choose Take the Free Quiz and answer 16 questions.
- Read your four-score profile and its plain-English explanation.
- Open My Account to save your profile and home location.
- Start an Action Pack if you want live ballot, representative, candidate, measure, local-news, or letter research.
The free quiz and paid research are separate. You can see your profile before paying for research.
Political Quiz
Answer 16 plain-language statements and see how your views map across four areas.
My Representatives
Find officials by ZIP, address, or name and compare their public record with your profile.
My Ballot
Look up an upcoming ZIP preview or address-level ballot, then research candidates and measures.
Political News
Read the free national briefing or run a cited local scan with an Action Pack.
Before you begin
Create and verify your account
You must be signed in with a verified email account to submit the quiz, use paid research, or save your work.
- Select Save Profile, My Account, or a research feature when the app asks you to sign in.
- Choose New here? Create an account if the form is in sign-in mode.
- Enter an email address and a password with at least six characters, then select Create Account. Google account creation is also available when shown.
- Open the verification email and follow its link. Check spam or junk if it does not arrive.
- Return to the app. Use Resend verification email from My Account if you need another message.
Why verification matters: a verified account gives the app a place to keep your profile, saved locations, research reports, and paid Action Pack access. It also lets the app email you when a longer research job is saved.
If a Not now option appears while you are starting research, you can close the account panel and return later. Research will not start until the required account and Action Pack are available.
Step 1
Take the free 16-question quiz
- Open Political Quiz and select Take the Free Quiz.
- Read the statement, the What this means explanation, and the example.
- Choose Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral / No Opinion, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree.
- Use Next Question to continue or Back to revisit an answer.
- Choose Get My Results on the last question.
- Economy & Money
- Taxes, public services, business rules, and healthcare support.
- Society & Freedom
- Personal freedoms, individual rights, justice, and community laws.
- Global Issues
- Foreign aid, treaties, partnerships, and the country's role in the world.
- Environment & Energy
- Climate action, clean energy, and traditional energy resources.
Choose Neutral / No Opinion when you are unsure, have mixed feelings, or do not have enough information. A neutral answer is a valid answer.
Constitutional context: every grounded question includes a short explanation and a link to the official U.S. Congress Constitution Annotated site. It may explain what Congress is allowed to do, how power is divided between federal and state governments, which individual rights are involved, or what limits apply to government action.
The Constitution can explain which part of government has power, which rights may be involved, or which legal limits matter. It does not produce one automatic answer to every policy question. Your result summarizes your answers; it is not a legal ruling about the Constitution.
Step 2
Read and use your results
The result screen gives you a profile label and plain-English explanation, a political compass-style chart, four scores from -100 to +100, topic breakdowns, party-profile comparisons, historical context, and a reading list.
- Economic System
- Public coordination and regulation compared with free-market and private-market preferences.
- Social Authority
- Individual liberty and social change compared with traditional order and community discipline.
- Foreign Outlook
- Domestic sovereignty and restraint compared with international cooperation and a global role.
- Ecology Priority
- Stronger environmental mandates compared with industry-led or traditional-energy priorities.
Each score summarizes a group of your answers. It is not a probability, a diagnosis, a party membership, or a prediction of how you will vote.
Actions on the result screen
- Save Profile opens My Account so you can keep the result on your verified account.
- Match My Representatives opens representative research.
- Match My Ballot opens ballot research.
- Print / Save as PDF opens your browser's print dialog.
- Share My Results creates a shareable result link or image when the browser allows it.
- Retake the Quiz starts a new baseline quiz.
Keep your work
Use My Account
Open My Account from the top navigation to manage your verified sign-in, saved profile, home location, Action Pack balance, and account controls.
Save a home location
You can save a home ZIP code and an optional full voting address. The ZIP code can pre-fill representative and local-news searches. The saved location can also pre-fill the ballot form. A full address is used for ballot lookup only when you choose to provide one; ZIP-only lookup remains available.
Sign out or delete your account
Use Sign Out to end the session. Use Delete Account, type DELETE, and confirm when you want to permanently remove account data described in the confirmation panel. Account deletion cannot be undone; payment or security records may be retained where the law requires it.
Live research
Start and use an Action Pack
An Action Pack pays for the live, sourced work behind ballot lookups, representative records, candidate and measure reports, local political news scans, letter drafts, and current-issues quiz refreshes. Paid research requires a verified account and an active pack.
| Option | Price | What it provides |
|---|---|---|
| Free Quiz | $0 | Baseline 16-question profile and results. |
| Single Election Research Action Pack | $4.99 one time | 2 ballot lookups, 1 representative search, 15 shared research reports, 5 advocacy-letter drafts, and 1 current-issues quiz refresh. |
| Additional research report | $0.99 each | One extra candidate, ballot measure, official, or local-news research report. Requires a separate confirmed checkout. |
| Election Season Pass | $19.99 one time | 6 Action Packs for the election season. It does not renew automatically. |
One shared report pool: the 15 reports are shared across My Representatives, My Ballot, and local Political News scans. Reopening an existing report does not use another report. Extra reports are never charged automatically; each $0.99 purchase requires a separate Stripe checkout that you actively complete.
Open a pack
- Finish the quiz so the app has your profile scores.
- Open My Representatives or My Ballot, or choose a research action from the result screen.
- If you have an unused paid pack, choose Start Saved Action Pack when offered.
- If you need to buy one, choose the $4.99 option and complete secure Stripe checkout.
- After payment is confirmed, the balance bar shows active allowances and unopened packs.
Research people
Find and research your representatives
Find officials by location or name
- Open My Representatives.
- On Find by ZIP or name, enter a ZIP code, address, or representative name, then choose Search.
- Review the returned federal, state, and local officials.
- Choose Research & Match for an official, or Research & Match All when you have enough shared reports.
You can also use Add manually to enter an official's name, government level, and optional role or district information.
Understand the report
- Role, level of government, party, and the area represented.
- Overall profile match score.
- Four-area comparison between your profile and the official's documented positions.
- Positive and critical public-record stories when relevant.
- Recent bills or issues, the official's recorded vote, your preferred direction, and alignment explanation.
- Evidence and source links.
Read the record behind the percentage. The overall score is a broad profile comparison, not a percentage of roll-call votes and not a prediction of future votes.
Organize, print, and contact
Filter tracked officials by name, government level, or party. Expand an official's card to inspect the comparison and voting record. Use Print / Save as PDF when a report is available.
In the contact section, select an issue category and choose Write Letter. Review the draft, then use Copy to Clipboard or Email Representative to move it into your own message workflow. Letter drafts use one of the pack's five letter allowances.
Research an election
Look up and research your ballot
Get a ballot preview
- Open My Ballot.
- Enter a ZIP code or voting address and choose Find my ballot.
- Wait while the app builds the upcoming election report.
A ZIP lookup creates a ZIP preview. An address lookup can produce an address-verified ballot when civic data contains matching contests. The report identifies which kind of lookup you received.
A report can include federal, state, and local races; the city, county, state, or other area covered by each race; a plain-English description of each office; verifiable candidates, incumbents, and challengers; ballot measures; the election date; source links; and evidence.
Research candidates and measures
After the lookup, choose an individual research action or Research next ... items. Researched candidates and measures receive sourced plain-English profiles and, when enough information is available, a comparison with your quiz profile.
- Your candidate matches at a glance summarizes researched races.
- Expanded cards show candidate details, positions, and evidence.
- Ballot-measure cards explain propositions, referendums, amendments, bonds, levies, recalls, and local questions.
- Copy cheat sheet creates a quick personal reference.
- Print / Save as PDF creates a paper or offline copy.
- Saved ballot reports can be reopened later.
Check the official ballot. A ZIP or address lookup does not replace your official sample ballot. Election offices can change polling places, deadlines, ballot language, and eligibility details. Confirm final information with your state or local election office.
Follow events
Read political news
Daily national briefing
Open Political News to read the free national briefing. Each story separates What happened, Why it matters, and What to watch. Some stories also include historical context and a clearly labeled pattern analysis.
Pattern analysis is the app's interpretation of sourced events, not a verified fact or a prediction. Published editions link to their sources and have permanent shareable pages in the Daily Civic Briefing archive.
Local ZIP scan
- Open Political News.
- Enter a U.S. ZIP code under Local ZIP scan.
- Choose Run local scan.
- Wait for the cited local briefing to finish.
A local scan uses one shared research report from an active Action Pack. The free national daily briefing does not require an Action Pack.
Keep learning
Refresh the quiz for current issues
The baseline profile quiz is the stable first step. After you have a profile and an Action Pack, This Week in Politics can use published questions tied to recent legislation and debates.
- A current-issues quiz that is already published is free to take.
- Asking the app to scan for new bills and debates uses the pack's one current-issues quiz refresh.
- The current-issues version is still a perspective tool. It does not replace reading a bill, an official summary, or the underlying sources.
Read critically
Sources, methodology, and limits
Where information comes from
- Quiz constitutional context links to the official U.S. Congress Constitution Annotated site.
- Ballot lookup uses the Google Civic Information API when data is available, then supplements missing details with live source research.
- Candidate, official, measure, and local-news reports use live web search and prefer official government, election, legislative, campaign, and reputable reporting sources.
- Reports show source links and evidence so you can inspect the material behind a claim.
What the app can and cannot do
The app translates complex civic information into plain English, but it can be wrong, incomplete, or out of date. A candidate may enter or leave a race. A court decision, vote, deadline, or ballot measure may change. Search results may not contain every local record. A profile match is an aid to research, not a substitute for your judgment.
- Open the cited sources.
- Check the date and make sure the source covers the correct city, county, state, or federal office.
- Confirm the final ballot and election rules with the official election office.
- Treat summaries and match scores as starting points for your own review.
Nonpartisan by design: What's My Politics does not endorse or recommend a party, candidate, official, ballot position, or policy outcome.
When something is unclear
Troubleshooting
The quiz says I must verify my email.
Open the verification message, check spam, then return to the app. If necessary, open My Account and choose Resend verification email. The quiz will not submit until the email is verified.
Research is unavailable.
Research needs both a verified account and an active Action Pack. Complete the quiz first, then open a research tab and start a saved pack or complete checkout.
My ballot is only a ZIP preview.
A ZIP lookup is intentionally a preview. Enter your full voting address when you want the app to attempt address-level verification. Confirm the result with your election office either way.
A research job is taking a while.
Live sourced research may take about one to four minutes depending on the feature and number of items. Keep the account signed in. The app may email the verified address when a longer report is saved.
I ran out of reports.
Look at the shared Action Pack balance bar. Reopen existing reports without spending another allowance, buy another $4.99 Action Pack, or purchase one additional report for $0.99 through a separate checkout.
I need help with an account or payment.
Email support@smarterwaytoapply.com. Never send a password, payment card number, or verification code.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Is the quiz really free?
Yes. The baseline 16-question political profile quiz is free. A verified email account is required to take and submit it.
Is What's My Politics affiliated with a political party?
No. The app is nonpartisan and does not endorse or recommend parties, candidates, officials, or ballot positions.
Do I need to pay before I can see my profile?
No. The free quiz produces your four-axis profile before paid research is offered.
What does the $4.99 Action Pack include?
It includes two ballot lookups, one representative search, a shared pool of 15 research reports, five advocacy-letter drafts, and one current-issues quiz refresh.
Are the 15 reports separate for each tab?
No. Candidate, ballot measure, official, and local political news reports use one shared pool across the research tabs.
Can I be charged automatically for extra reports?
No. Each extra $0.99 report requires a separate Stripe checkout that you actively complete.
What does a match percentage mean?
It is a broad comparison between your quiz profile and the documented positions or record found for a candidate or official. It is not a vote recommendation or a prediction of future votes.
Can the app guarantee that my ballot is complete?
No. It combines civic data and source research, but election information changes. Check the final ballot, deadlines, and voting instructions with your official election office.
How do I keep my research on another device?
Use the same verified email account when you sign in. Saved profile data, home location, research history, and paid Action Pack access are tied to that account.
How do I report a problem?
Email support@smarterwaytoapply.com with a description of the issue. Never include your password, payment card number, or verification code.