Logistical Analysis of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

Format: On Campus
Number of Interns (Quota): 2
Duration of the Internship: 4 - 8 Weeks
Start Date: 1 July 2025
End Date: 31 July 2025
Application Deadline: 1 May 2025
Project Supervisor: Dr. Mesut Sayın

Project Description: This project focuses on analyzing the scheduling and routing strategies used by US presidential and primary election candidates during the last four cycles. It aims to explore the factors influencing the selection of states to visit and their order, as well as to identify the mental optimization models used by campaign decision-makers.

The research will analyze the decisions behind candidates’ campaign schedules, specifically which states to prioritize and how to optimize visit times. The goal is to extract and analyze the scheduling and routing plans from the last four US presidential and primary election campaigns, to identify key factors that influence campaign route decisions, including demographics, voting patterns, and media coverage, and to understand the mental optimization model used by campaign managers in decision-making processes. Tasks include collecting data on campaign routes and schedules from US elections, analyzing the factors influencing campaign decisions, developing a model of decision-making used in campaign scheduling, and comparing strategies across elections and candidates for both Republicans and Democrats.

Desired qualifications: The student should possess good analytical skills and be familiar with data analytics libraries such as Numpy, Pandas, and Scikit-Learn in Python.

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