CCES is a 30,000 person national stratified sample survey. Half of the questionnaire consists of Common Content asked of all 30,000 people, and half of the questionnaire consists of Team Content designed by an individual team and asked of a subset of 1,000 people. In addition, several teams may pool their resources to create Group Content. This part of the website provides information about each of these activities as well as the sample design.

The survey consists of two waves. In the pre-election phase, respondents answer two-thirds of the questionnaire. This segment of the survey asks about general political attitudes, various demographic factors, assessment of roll call voting choices, and political information. The pre-election phase is administered late September to late October and rolled out in three distinct time-periods, the end of September, the middle of October, and the end of October. Spacing of interviews across these intervals allows researchers to gauge the effects of campaign information and events on the state and district electorates.