Quantitative Reasoning Assignment
Assignment 1:
Identify and compare two geographic units: California and the state you have signed up to study,
or the CA-52 congressional district (make sure to consult the 2022 lines) and the US
congressional district you have signed up to study. Answer the following questions in one single
pdf document.
State assigned to study : NC Republicans (U.S senate races)
1. What demographic and political information about the residents of these geographic units
would be most helpful to you in understanding the electoral politics of these two
districts? Can you find that information from the US Census or state elections official
websites?
2. Choose five quantitative indicators about each geographic unit and make your own,
original graphs or tables to tell a clear story comparing the units’ politics. (You can make
your graphs or figures in Excel or Google Sheets, and save as images in your pdf. If you
need help getting started, see the tutorial links in Blackboard).
3. One of these geographic units is considered to be “competitive” and the other is not.
What variables are politicians, pundits and scholars using to come to that conclusion?
What one piece of quantitative data from each district tells us the most about the
competitiveness of the two geographic units you are looking at? (Please make sure one of
your graphs from #2 describes these data). What kinds of information could you find that
would be less helpful in assessing the districts’ electoral competitiveness?
4. Explain the limitations of the conclusions you think we can draw from the information
you have collected. What assumptions do you have to make to draw any conclusions at
all about the future from such information? What justifies those assumptions? What
caution should we use when basing conclusions on those assumptions?
5. Prepare a two-slide presentation that summarizes these data points graphically to describe
your geographic political unit to your classmates.
Resources (Charts etc):
https://towardsdatascience.com/data-visualization-101-how-to-choose-a-chart-type-9b8830e558d
6
https://www.howtogeek.com/425040/the-beginners-guide-to-google-sheets/
https://support.google.com/docs/answer/63824?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-charts-and-graphs-in-your-presentation-c74616f1-
a5b2-4a37-8695-fbcc043bf526
https://www.canva.com/graphs/