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What Are Swing States In US Elections and Why Are They Critical?

What Are Swing States US Elections and Why Are They Critical?

As the 2024 US presidential elections is drawing nearer and nearer, what are the swing states in US elections, and why are they critical?

Battleground states, sometimes referred to as swing states or purple states, are extremely competitive states that have historically voted for opposing parties in presidential elections.

The majority of states consistently follow party lines when casting ballots; between 2000 and 2016, 38 states supported the same political party. However, there are a few states that don’t attract disproportionate attention from pollsters and candidates. This is the background of swing states and the significant impact they have had on US elections.

There are 538 electoral college votes in total, and presidential candidates need 270 of them to win the White House. 48 out of 50 states use a “winner take all” system, which means that whoever wins the popular vote receives all the state’s electoral college votes. Maine and Nebraska use the congressional district method, which means that the state’s popular vote winner receives two electoral votes, while the popular vote winner in each Congressional district receives one.

Presidents can win the popular vote while losing the electoral college vote. It has happened five times, most recently in the 2016 election, when Hillary Rodham Clinton received 2.8 million more popular votes than Electoral College winner Donald Trump, the greatest margin in history.

Since the 2000 presidential election, 38 of the 50 states have voted for the same party, making it relatively straightforward to forecast which states will vote for a Democratic candidate and which will vote for a Republican. Swing states are those where voters do not consistently vote along party lines, determining whether a candidate wins or loses.

Importance Of Swing States

The argument that “every vote counts” is especially relevant in battleground states. Close presidential elections throughout American history have demonstrated this: in 1948, Harry S. Truman defeated Thomas Dewey by less than one percent of the popular vote in swing states such as Ohio, California, Indiana, Illinois, and New York—a race so close that newspaper headlines incorrectly declared Dewey the winner.

In the 1960 presidential election between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy, ten states were won with less than 2% of the vote. And in 2000, the election came down to who won Florida, which George W. Bush won by only 537 votes.

Because winning swing states is such a high-stakes game, candidates devote 75 percent or more of their campaign resources to courting them. Candidates usually exclusively tour swing states on the campaign trail, frequently avoiding other states entirely unless they are fundraising. “Swing states are the presidential campaign,” explains Hudak.