b'Red America, Blue America? It Might Be Mostly RaceAbigail M. EastonSponsor: Dr. Bernard Tamas, Department of Political ScienceOne of the most critical influences in American voting behavior is the political split between urban, suburban, and rural areas. Political analysts have discussed the importance of understanding the differences in ideological regions to be able to predict what party will win the majority in the states and what seats that party will win. However, there is not enough research available to be able to understand this political split and the effect that it can have on national elections. Because of this lack of available data for the most recent presidential election, this paper will show the survey analysis from ANES Time Series study 2012. Using SPSS, the available urban/rural split data will be compared with a number of variables including votes, race, gender, age, etc. The original proposal of this paper was to examine the rural/ urban split in American party politics, but when examining the data, a stronger and more interesting relationship came out of the data. Namely that the 2012 election abandoned all traditional voting norms and instead focused on cultural differences between the candidates, essentially proving that the 2012 election was all about race. Gender Gap: The 2016 Presidential Election in Historical PerspectiveTaylor H. StanfillSponsor: Dr. Bernard Tamas, Department of Political SciencePrior studies show that gender plays a vital role in the composition of the American political system. This particular demographic has persistently demonstrated that women tend to vote more Democratic, whereas, men tend to vote more Republican. The 2016 presidential election is no exception. According to the general media, because of Donald Trumps candidacy, the election was unparalleled demonstrating the greatest gender gap in US election history. However, my analysis contests this by viewing the 2016 election in historical perspective. For this study, I examined the extent to which gender and voter support is present in US presidential elections from 1948 to 2012 and compared these statistics to those of the 2016 election. While it was determined that there was a significant gender gap present amongst voters in the 2016 election, when compared to prior elections, it was determined that it did not produce the dramatic gender gap many claim.86'