Presidential election is approaching, and you have certainly heard of how important swing states will be to define who will be the next president of the United States.
Swing states, also known as battleground states, are states that could “swing” to either Democratic or Republican candidates depending on the election. Because of their potential to be won by either candidate, political parties often spend a disproportionate amount of time and campaign resources on winning these states.
While there is no universal definition of what identifies a swing state, they are characterized by having small vote margins and that different political parties win over time. Since 1992, 30 states have voted for the candidate of the opposite party from the previous election at least once. And 26 states were won by less than three points in any presidential election since 1992.
What are the current swing states?
The states that voted for current Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 and former Republican president Donald Trump in 2016 and are often highlighted as swing states. These states include Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Tight margins in races also indicate that a state could have been won by either party. In 2020, seven states were won by a margin of three percentage points or less. These states included the five above states, in addition to North Carolina and Nevada.
Which states have historically been swing states?
Political realignment from presidential election to presidential election—such as from Trump to Biden—can be one way to identify swing states. Years where a president is up for re-election tend to have fewer states that change parties, but since 1992, every presidential election has had at least a few states switch party affiliations.
Of the past eight presidential elections, the 1992 election had the highest number of states that switched political parties. With 22 states that flipped from the previous election, it is often cited as a year of political realignment, where Bill Clinton’s defeat of George H.W. Bush turned many states that historically voted Republican (including California, Colorado, Maryland, among others) into states that reliably voted for Democrats for the next decade.
There hasn’t been a presidential election since 1992 with that many states voting for a different political party’s presidential candidate.
Source: USA Facts