1. ALEXANDRIA THOMPSON FINAL PROJECT BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH QUESTION I realized that a republican candidate won the 2014 senate election even though Pueblo is usually predominately democratic. I wanted to find out what the main factors that influenced the votes for a republican candidate in Colorado were. Research Question: By what percent did the votes for the GOP candidate in the 2014 senate election change from previous years and what factors were most important in influencing the change in the state of Colorado?

2. DATA SOURCES I used the total outcome of votes from previous senate elections that I found on the Denver Post Website to determine the change in 2014. After I found the percent of change I used the exit polls from CNN of the 2014 senate election to find which factors influenced the change the most http://www.cnn.com/election/2014/results/state/CO/senate http://data.denverpost.com/election/results/us-senate/2010/ http://www.cnn.com/election/2014/results/state/CO/senate http://data.denverpost.com/election/results/us-senate/2010/ http://data.denverpost.com/election/results/us-senate/2008/ http://data.denverpost.com/election/results/us-senate/2014/ IssueMost Chosen Answer Total Percentag e Percentag e of Votes for Udall from Total Percentag e Votes for Gardner from Total Party Control Important81%46%51% Worried Economy Yes65%31%62% Military Action ISIS Approve63%44%53% Opinion of Obama Dissatisfied59%15%77%

3. DATA ANALYSIS Senate Election 2008: GOP- 42.5% Democrat-52.7% Senate Elecion2010: GOP- 46.8% Democrat-47.7% Senate Election 2014: GOP- 48.5% Democrat-46%

4. CONCLUSIONS The percentage vote for GOP increased 6% from 2008 to 2014 and the percentage vote for Democrat decreased by 6.7% from 2008 to 2014. The most important factor that influenced the votes was the importance of party control of the U.S. Senate. 1.Importance of Party Control of U.S. Senate-81% 2.Worried About the Economic Conditions-65% 3.Approval of U.S. Military Action Against ISIS-63% 4.Opinion of the Obama Administration Dissatisfied-59% Of each total percentage presented Cory Gardner the GOP candidate got the most votes out of these percentages compared to the votes that Udall received.