US Election: Swing states explained

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Rather than a national election, the US presidential race often appears like a series of contests in less than a dozen states. https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2020/1017/1172055-us-election-swing-states/ That's because both the Republican and Democratic parties rely on consistent partisanship and polarisation in about 80% of US states. These states have a strong record of voting for a particular party and polling suggests that the trends haven’t changed drastically. For example, California has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate since 1992 while Texas has voted for the Republican nominee since 1980. Therefore, candidates see it as unnecessary to campaign in a state that they are almost guaranteed to win or lose. Efforts instead are diverted to what’s known as swing states/battleground states/purple states - areas which have unclear party loyalties with persuadable voters. How are swing states defined? Republican pollster Jon McHenry said swing states are calculated by conducting polling while taking into account margin of error. "So if a state has 600 respondents and the margin of error is plus or minus 4%, we could say 'well if they’re within the margin on either side, if they’re within say six points… we can say that’s a toss-up state’" he said. As data can vary from week-to-week, Mr McHenry said assessing historic trends is critical. "Frankly, if there was a poll that came out tomorrow that said that President Trump was within five points in California,

Published 2020-10-17 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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