Election night

Imagine that you are a reporter on the Butler County beat at the Hamilton Journal. It is election night 2012 and the results from the Butler County Board of Elections just came in.

Because of your data analysis skills, the city editor asks you to contribute 250-300 words on the presidential election results in Butler County which he will include as a sidebar to the main election story.

Your job is not to break the news that Obama won reelection, but to provide analysis of the local returns. Your response should be reported from the election returns from the Butler County Board of Elections that are supplied.

1. How did democratic and republican presidential candidates do in Butler County in 2008 compared to 2012? Look at both percent and number of votes, to see if they gained or lost votes, or if turnout was different.

2. Look at the standout areas (cities or townships) in 2008 and 2012. Any interesting changes? (The easiest way to approach this problem will probably be to make pivot tables for each year, as you did on the last exercise, and then use cut-paste special to combine them onto a single table.)