Swing States Are Decisive

CHICAGO. The motto of the U.S. presidential election could very well be "this is not a popularity contest," but rather largely a matter of strategy.

In 2020, more than 160 million people voted in the U.S. presidential election, but the difference between the candidates was less than two percent of the vote in each of six states, now considered "swing states," where the next presidency is expected to be decided.

This situation has already led both parties to schedule multimillion-dollar investments in advertising and voter outreach operations: Republicans, for example, announced at least $100 million in advertising in swing states during September and October; Democrats reported $15 million to increase the number of offices and staff in the most contested states.

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In the peculiar system Americans follow to elect a president, national elections are actually 50 state contests, which ultimately vote by blocs of electors—equal to the number of their federal legislators—committed to one candidate or another.

At least 270 electoral votes are needed for a candidate to win, and political strategists rely on each state’s history to determine its political proclivity: according to the most realistic estimates, at the start of the presidential campaign, Republicans have 235 electoral votes and Democrats 226.

Based on this, presidential candidates focus their campaigns on states known as swing states or "battleground states," meaning those that could swing either way because they are the ones that can ultimately decide the outcome of the presidential race.

Swing states are also known as "purple states" or "battleground states" because these are geographic areas that don't have a clear candidate in the polls.

In fact, they are called purple because they are states with a mix of Republican (red) and Democratic (blue) voters, making it difficult to predict their trend with clarity in pre-election surveys.

Therefore, swing states are of vital importance to both Democrats and Republicans, as they are the ones that could end up determining the results of what is expected to be a very tight race.

That's why, leading up to the elections, both campaigns tend to make significant efforts to win over the vote in purple states.

The six states considered decisive have a total of 87 electoral votes: Arizona (11), North Carolina (16), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Pennsylvania (19), and Wisconsin (10).

But in 2020, a relatively small percentage change in votes would have been decisive. In Georgia, for example, Joe Biden's margin of victory over Donald Trump was just 0.2 percent, or about 12,000 votes out of nearly five million cast; in Arizona, it was just 0.3 percent, slightly less than 11,000 votes out of three million.

In the last 25 years, Democrats lost the 2000 and 2006 elections despite winning the popular vote.

And it is believed that this time the situation could be similar.

BY JOSÉ CARREÑO FIGUERAS

COLLABORATOR

JOSE.CARRENO@ELHERALDODEMEXICO.COM

@CARRENOJOSE1