What is a swing state?
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada—These states have decided electoral victories, especially starting from the 2016 cycle to the most recent 2024 presidential elections by increasingly thin and volatile margins. ¹Georgia and Arizona recently entered the fray of swing states after Joe Biden carried these by less than one point of margin. ² ³
Swing states are characterized by this very feature of being competitive states, winnable by either presidential candidate if they manage to sway key electorate demographics. This unique feature, by attribute of the way the electoral college works, has made these states an integral part of US elections. ⁴
The shrinking club
Whether it be the calcification of the US deep south to the Democrats post-emancipation or the modern-day Republicans having evangelicals as safe voting blocs, certain demographics voting strongly in favour of a party is not foreign to US politics. ⁵ ⁶
However now, more than ever, politics has been defined by sharper divisions and clearer boundaries even when real human identities may be nuanced and deeply intersectional.The political fluidity of 20th century America was not due to the lack of polarisation, but rather due to the fact that parties often shared views that weren’t exclusive to a left or right wing dichotomy as may be perceived today. ⁷ ⁸
Thus, the USA at present under its bipartisan system, with either party trying to draw clear lines with the other, sees redder rural votes and bluer urban clusters with each election. ⁵This shows more vividly than anywhere else in the painfully specific conditions that must occur for a swing state to exist in the current political environment— the presence of a handful of urban clusters (such as Madison in Wisconsin), large expanses of rural countryside and most critically, a sizeable number of undecideds, usually present in suburbs, exurbs and smaller towns. ⁵
Why swing states?
These seemingly insignificant votes, sometimes as little as a few ten thousand, matter when the US electoral college functionally equates winning by one vote to winning by millions, thereby securing all of the state’s electoral votes to the party with the most votes. Therefore these states stand as litmus tests to the presidential candidate’s policies, electoral favorabilities and more.
A final word
Ultimately, the political climate is likely to remain in all of its unpredictability and tense wholeness, and as with most eras in politics is seeing a steady churn of repeated ideas and ideological convergences, and the concerning lack of swing states shall possibly be remembered as a feature of this time period.
For now, as the era-defining politicians of this decade near the end of their terms and as their electability declines, socio-political metamorphosis is underway, bringing new rhetorics, opinions and certainly— new swing states.
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