What are swing states?
The concept of swing states refers to those administrative territories of the United States of America in which the division of support for the candidates in the presidential elections nominated by the two major political parties (on bipartisanship, see the last week's article) is more or less even. This means that, due to minor differences in the political preferences of residents eligible to vote and the specifics of the American electoral system, both candidates have a chance to win in the above-mentioned states.
The opposite of these states are the so-called “safe states” where the candidate of the Democratic or Republican Party is certain to win. States with overwhelming support for the Democratic nominee are referred to as “blue states,” while those in which the Republican nominee receives the majority of votes are “red states.”
Due to all the legal and factual circumstances, without victory in the undecided states it is impossible to gain the presidency. This is why swing states are of particular interest to candidates during the presidential election campaign.
What makes swing states so important in the US presidential election process?
In order to understand how fundamental swing states are during presidential elections, it is necessary to mention once again the specifics of the way in which the President of the United States is elected.
According to Article 2 (1) of the Constitution of the United States, the election of the President shall be made by electors, the number of which shall correspond to the total number of Senators and members of the House of Representatives to which the state is entitled. Each state has two representatives in the Senate, while the number of members of the lower house of the U.S. Parliament depends on the size of the state's population. Currently, the total number of members of the so-called Electoral College is 538 electors. This is the number corresponding to the total number of members of the House of Representatives and Senators, to which, under the 23rd Amendment of 1961, three electors were added – representatives of the District of Columbia.
According to the aforementioned constitutional regulation, the person who obtained the most electoral votes becomes the president, provided that it is also the so-called absolute majority of appointed electors. In practice, this means that a candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
It should be remembered that determining the method of selecting electors remains the prerogative of local authorities. The state legislature therefore determines the form and rules for nominating, appointing candidates, and allocating their votes to a specific candidate. The vast majority of state legislatures have adopted the "winner takes all" model of popular elections, meaning that the presidential candidate who receives the most votes (even if the difference is minimal) receives ALL the electoral votes from a given state.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the opinion emerging in the public discourse that the election of president is not decided by all citizens participating in the elections, but de facto by a narrow group of voters in specific counties of given states. In the last few decades, the most high-profile case of this kind was the result of the presidential election in 2000 – then, Republican candidate George W. Bush won the state of Florida over Democratic candidate Al Gore by 537 votes, thanks to which he obtained the constitutionally required majority of electoral votes to win the presidency.
Swing states “in theory and practice”
Unlike, for example, electors, the concept of swing states has no legal basis, it is a category used, inter alia, in political science. Thus, it should be noted that there is no fixed and closed set of swing states. It is true that some states are traditionally included in the above categories (e.g. Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire); however, due to a number of non-legal factors, including structural population changes, in particular demographic changes (related to, among other things, the age, race and gender of voters), a state that was considered undecided in one election may be considered "safe" in the next. For example, in the 2000 presidential election, as many as 17 states were considered swing states, while in 2016, “only” 9 were considered swing states.
The above-mentioned principle also applies in reverse – due to the evolution of political preferences, a state defined as "safe" may end up in the swing state category or "change colours" (before the start of this year's presidential campaign, some analysts predicted that several new states might join the group of swing states due to the movement of part of the population between states during the COVID-19 pandemic, e.g. a large group of people from California moved to the central states due to the weaker sanitary regime in force there; these initial analyses have not yet been confirmed).
It is important to point out that these changes are influenced by factors related to issues such as the growing up of children of migrants from minority groups (whose parents did not have the right to vote), a decrease in the birth-to-death ratio in majority groups, or an increase/decrease in interest in participating in elections among specific social groups (age, professional, etc.).
It should be emphasized that the candidates’ election headquarters that the candidates' election headquarters carefully analyse such changes already at the stage of preparing campaign strategies. As indicated above, it is the swing states that are primarily the focus of attention of those running in the elections. Candidates appear more often in these states, devote more financial resources to election materials (promotional materials in the mass media, including local media, leaflets, posters), and social, economic, political and legal issues that are of interest to voters in these administrative units find an important place in election programmes. Visits to "safe states" are usually less frequent, as they do not bring any tangible benefits to those running for president (since victory there is certain anyway), apart from a possible strengthening of their image.
The fight to win electoral votes from swing states should come as no surprise. Without electors from swing states – taking into account the "traditional" division into blue and red states – it remains impossible to obtain the constitutionally required absolute majority of electoral votes necessary to win the presidential election. During this year's election, it will be necessary to watch the results in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin especially closely.
Text: Dr Jakub Stępień
Department of Constitutional Law, University of Lodz / Center for Anglo-American Legal Tradition, University of Lodz
ORCID: 0000-0003-0106-680
The article is a part of the ConLaw24 series, in which the Center for Anglo-American Legal Tradition takes a closer look at the intricacies of the American legal and political system. We will publish new texts every Tuesday until election day.