After a dropoff in turnout four years ago, Democrats came roaring back in the 2018 midterms and held strong in this year’s local elections. If current trends from the 2012 and 2016 elections continue, the closest results in 2020 will occur in Arizona, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska's second congressional district, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,[26] with Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin constituting the "Big Four" most likely to decide the electoral college. He's running against former governor John Hickenlooper. Last month, for the first time in at least a decade, more Florida Democrats cast primary election ballots than Republicans. [31], The electoral college encourages political campaigners to focus most of their efforts on courting swing states. It’s a tall order, but the party took significant steps in that direction in 2018, when Stacey Abrams only narrowly lost her bid for governor in 2018, and Democrats flipped one suburban congressional seat and came close to picking up a second. Countdown to the 2020 Presidential Election, How to Make an Impact in the 2020 Election, A State-by-State Analysis of How Underpaid Women Are. The lowest gain for conservatives was 3.4% in New Hampshire and the highest was 10.6% in Minnesota. Within each of these swing states, the roadmap ahead … In New Hampshire, the Republicans lost a bit of ground. 2) Win the state’s four Electoral College votes, 1) Win the state’s 16 Electoral College votes, 2) Flip control of the Republican-led Michigan State House. The former currently holds the most diverse class of representatives our country has seen in the legislative body's 230-year history. Even a GOP challenge to it was dismissed by SCOTUS. Within each of these swing states, the roadmap ahead for President Donald Trump and Joe Biden is clear. Miles Coleman. 1) Flip the U.S. Senate seat currently held by John Cornyn. These states in the middle...you win enough of them and you win the presidency.". And Trump is a president whose support has been notoriously difficult for pollsters to survey. It was called Goofy Kicking Donald. It voted for the Republican nominee in 10 of the last 11 elections, with Jimmy Carter in 1976 being the last Democrat to win the state. 2008 hatte Obama in den aufgeführten Wechselstaaten gewonnen, dieses Mal wird es … [32], Since most states use a winner-takes-all arrangement, in which the candidate with the most votes in that state receives all of the state's electoral votes, there is a clear incentive to focus almost exclusively on only a few undecided states. Joe Biden's Youngest Daughter Is An Activist. Because these states are so crucial for 2020 and future elections, it is important to analyze how they have been trending over recent years. Rather, Colorado was most in-step with the rest of the country. When Are Presidential Running Mates Chosen? Help democracy by writing postcards to voters in these key states. For instance, the swing states of Ohio, Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey and New York were key to the outcome of the 1888 election. [1] Meanwhile, the states that regularly lean to a single party are known as safe states, as it is generally assumed that one candidate has a base of support from which they can draw a sufficient share of the electorate. RT @CitizenActionIL: A reminder: the U.S. has 7.2 million people with COVID-19. Arizona, Georgia, Texas)[4]. 2) Win the state’s nine Electoral College votes, 1) Win the state’s 29 Electoral College votes, 2) Break unified Republican control of the state government by flipping the Florida State House, 1) Flip both U.S. Senate seats up for election, 2) Compete for the state’s 16 Electoral College votes, 3) Break unified Republican control of the state government by flipping the Georgia State House. She's running against Theresa Greenfield. Postcards to Swing States. Here's why", https://www.usnews.com/news/the-run-2016/articles/2016-11-14/the-10-closest-states-in-the-2016-election, "Battleground States Poll - June 21, 2004", "Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » The Electoral College: The Only Thing That Matters", "Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » The Electoral College: Pennsylvania Moves Toward Clinton", "Donald Trump Had A Superior Electoral College Strategy", How close were Presidential Elections? Meanwhile, the states that regularly lean to a single party are known as safe states, … The Era of the Super PAC in American Politics, voters registered Republican and Democratic. The most popular use of swing state is to describe one in which the popular vote margin in a presidential race is relatively narrow and fluid, meaning that either a Republican or Democrat could win the state's electoral votes in any given election cycle. Howard Schultz, the Starbucks founder and longtime Democrat, may run as an independent as he fears the Democratic Party has moved too far left, although he has not made much news in recent months after a flurry of activity earlier in the year. The swing-state "map" transforms between each election cycle, depending on the candidates and their policies, sometimes dramatically and sometimes subtly. Enjoy this post? In the last election my state of PA went for trump. — While these states are up for grabs in 2020, there are signs that these states have been becoming more hospitable to Republicans over the past couple of decades. According to Katrina vanden Heuvel, a journalist for 'The Nation', "four out of five" voters in the national election are "absolutely ignored". [10] For example, if a candidate wins only a few states but does so by a wide margin, while the other candidate's victories are much closer, the popular vote would likely favor the former. Chip in $35 to cover postage for a volunteer! It illustrates how absurd it is to allow legislators to choose their voters. It should be interesting to see if the new voting districts will actually make a difference. | Privacy Policy. The number of swing voters declines when an incumbent president is seeking a second term. — Tim Alberta, It’s been so long since Minnesota voted Republican in a presidential election that many Democrats suspected a head fake when Trump first boasted about his intent to compete there. 2) Win the state’s 15 Electoral College votes, 3) Break Republican control of the state legislature by flipping one or both chambers, 1) Compete for the state’s 18 Electoral College votes, 2) Curb Republican control of the state government by breaking the GOP’s legislative supermajority in the Ohio State House, 1) Win the state’s 20 Electoral College votes, 2) Break Republican control of the state legislature by flipping one or both chambers. Find Out Here, This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. Even in presidential election years, voters may split presidential and gubernatorial tickets. Coloradans voted for Obama by just over 5 points. The state of Colorado is classified as one of the mountain states; this is mainly because the state encompasses the majority of the southern Rocky Mountains. Both were very close: Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1 points in 2016 but lost the electoral vote count, and Gore won nationally by 0.5 points in 2000 but lost in an Electoral College squeaker because he lost Florida by less than 600 votes. "You look at the 50 states and you have the 15 to 20 that Democrats are going to win and the 15 to 20 that Republicans are going to win. First off, The Democratic Party has to stop thinking about ‘easy’ victories. In 2000, Ralph Nader may have caused Gore’s loss, while in 2016 the third-party candidates may not have affected the outcome. Swing states are also sometimes referred to as battleground states. 2) Compete for the state’s six Electoral College votes, 3) Break unified GOP control of the state government by flipping the Iowa State House. Can a SCOTUS Justice Be Replaced in 2020? Here, a list and map of the swing states that could determine a Democratic or Republican victory in the 2020 presidential election. Sources I used: McClatchy, Teagan Goddard, Crystal Ball, Swing Left, NDRC, and election nerds I follow on Twitter. Is Mark Zuckerberg a Democrat or a Republican? In past electoral results, Republican candidates would have expected to easily win most of the mountain states and Great Plains, such as Idaho, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska, most of the South, including Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and South Carolina, as well as Alaska. For example, Nate Silver, a widely read political journalist writing on The New York Times blog FiveThirtyEight, defined the term swing state this way: Swing States in the Presidential Election. — The 2020 election may effectively be decided by six crucial swing states, all of which featured margins of less than two percentage points in 2016. [8] Michigan would have been more relevant to the election results had the election been closer. Tom Murse is a former political reporter and current Managing Editor of daily paper "LNP," and weekly political paper "The Caucus," both published by LNP Media in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Whoever wins most of them will in all likelihood win the presidency. 2020 Battleground States: Where Democrats Must Fight Hard To Oust Trump | The Austin Editor, 15 Ways You Can Help Get More People Registered to Vote, 2 Sleeper Senate Races You Should Be Paying Attention To. and tend to flip between red and blue each election cycle. Green Party voters who do not stick with that party’s nominee may be likelier to go to the Democrat next year. Die Swing States – zu Deutsch „schwankende Staaten“ – sind ein wichtiger Faktor beim Ausgang der US-Präsidentenwahl. [11][12] However, although the vast majority of the states leaned to the latter candidate in comparison to the entire country, many of them would end up having voted for the loser in greater numbers than did the tipping-point state. "Swing states are the most critical states in the upcoming election. Here’s a look at the eight swing states that will decide the 2020 election: Migration from California, a growing Latino population, and shifting attitudes among white college-educated voters are reshaping the state’s political landscape, giving it a new status as a true battleground. 2) Win the state’s 11 Electoral College votes, 3) Break unified Republican control of the state government by flipping one or both state legislative chambers. Still, almost everyone on both sides expects another squeaker like in 2016, when Trump took Pennsylvania in 2016 by an eyelash. Each and every one of those people … They are also states that have been both red and blue in previous presidential elections. His campaign is convinced there is. [27] Other potential swing states in 2020 include states designated as "tipping point" states by FiveThirtyEight [28], Presidential campaigns and pundits seek to keep track of the shifting electoral landscape. [21], Swing states have generally changed over time. And Trump’s term in the White House, both Arizona Republicans and Democrats say, is serving as an accelerant. The nomination of a too-liberal or unpopular Democrat could destroy Democratic chances. Influential States, The Bush campaign memo detailing its look at the swing states (PDF file), Elections in which the winner lost the popular vote, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swing_state&oldid=980084721, United States presidential elections terminology, Political party strength by state in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 24 September 2020, at 14:28. So it is likely that both the Libertarian and Green parties will run different candidates. — Natasha Korecki. In 2016, the liberals were Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein (Green). Swing states are those in which neither major political party holds a lock on the outcome of presidential elections. Together, these eight states represent 127 electoral votes — and a departure from the fairly static map of the pre-Trump era. Presidential campaigns focus on these states since the election is decided by electoral votes chosen by the popular vote of each state and not by a direct national popular vote. Overall, Trump won this group 47%-30%, suggesting that in a two-way race, Trump may have still won because of his advantage among these voters. We may earn commission from the links on this page. The first step, though, is being aware of the states that will determine the fate of our country. The three main 2016 third-party candidates — Johnson (Libertarian), Stein (Green), or McMullin (anti-Trump Republican independent) — do not appear to be planning to run in 2020. In addition, gradual shifts can occur within states due to changes in demography, geography, or population patterns. Other states like Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio will get serious attention, but the winner in all likelihood will have to carry most of the Big Six Swing States. [13] The presidential election in 2016 was a notable example, as it featured one of the largest historical disparities between the Electoral College and popular vote. However, none of them were considered the tipping-point state, as Romney would not have been able to defeat Obama even if he had emerged victorious in all of them. Another similarity between the two years was that each had three serious third party contenders who won a total of 3.5% to 4.9% of the votes. Donald Trump's fate is in the hands of these major Electoral College votes. Here are the states everyone is 99.9% positive about, that will vote Liberal or Conservative unless the Democrats nominate Michael Myers or the Republicans nuke Texas. [33] Additionally, campaigns stopped mounting nationwide electoral efforts in the last few months near/at the ends of the blowout 2008 election, but rather targeted only a handful of battlegrounds. A good comparison is to look at the 2000 election, when George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore, compared to the 2016 election. The tipping point state, and the next 10 states with close margins on each side, are shown as the swing states in retrospect. If you want to help make a difference, whether you live in a swing state or not, find out how to volunteer for Swing Left and invest in a progressive future here. Two electoral votes go to the person who wins a plurality in the state, and a candidate gets one additional electoral vote for each Congressional District in which they receive a plurality. [8] Instead, the tipping-point state that year was Michigan, as it gave Reagan the decisive electoral vote. [14][15] Additionally, this "split" in votes was much larger in both directions than in previous elections, such as the 2000 election. She's running against Captain Mark Kelly, who's the husband of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Box 400806Charlottesville, VA 22904, © 2020 By the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. I am hopeful, that if we all take some action every month, we can flip PA blue this year. The expectation was that the candidates would look after the interests of the states with the most electoral votes. The guides are meant to be used both by folks who live in the swing states, and also people who want to help move the needle in one of the swing states even though they may live in a reliably blue or red state. Due to the winner-take-all style of the Electoral College, candidates often campaign only in competitive states, which is why a select group of states frequently receives a majority of the advertisements and partisan media. [2] The battlegrounds may change in certain election cycles and may be reflected in overall polling, demographics, and the ideological appeal of the nominees. Swing States. It is important to note that these three and many other “heartland” states have many white working-class men and women — defined as those who do not have a four-year college degree. As many mathematical analysts have noted, however, the state voting in a fashion most similar to that of the nation as a whole is not necessarily the tipping-point. There was not much change nationally. Follow me on Twitter at @DHStokyo Polling, however, is not. Election analytics website FiveThirtyEight in 2016 identified the states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin as "perennial" swing states that have regularly seen close contests over the last few presidential campaigns.