Battleground States

A BATTLEGROUND STATE is a state that is perceived to be winnable by either political party in a presidential election. As battleground states are states in which both parties are regarded as being truly competitive with one another, and both parties spend more campaign funds on advertising and voter mobilization in these states than in any non-battleground state (a much less competitive state). The battleground metaphor comes from the notion that battleground states are where most of the battle takes place; campaigns work feverishly to secure the state's electoral votes for their candidate, and residents of battleground states are much more subject to a deluge of television, radio, and direct mail advertisements. The electoral votes of all the other states are virtually (though perhaps not literally) conceded by one candidate's national campaign to that of the other.

There is no precise definition for what constitutes what should be a battleground state. As the election draws near, strategists and political analysts pick and choose which states they think will witness the most competition between the presidential candidates. Thus, every presidential election has its share of surprises; while most often the margin of difference in vote tallies between the candidates in battleground states turns out to be quite close (plus or minus three percentage points), there have been instances where other battleground states ultimately yielded results that were well outside that margin. In a few isolated cases, the results of a battleground state are sometimes so lopsided (a margin of 10 percentage points or greater) that they do not reflect a competitive nature at all, thereby throwing into question if that state should have been considered a battleground state in the first place.

In principle, candidates' campaign teams will maintain that every vote is important. They will always encourage their most ardent supporters to get involved in the community and contribute their time, effort, and money to help bring their candidate to victory, no matter where they live in the United States. However, campaigns also must deal with the harsh reality of limited resources, and because a candidate needs not a majority of the popular vote, but, rather, a majority vote in the Electoral College to win, candidates divert their resources to the “swing” states where the candidate has a chance of winning the state, but where the outcome is far from certain. As most states have a “winner-take-air system, the winner of a state typically gets all of that state's electoral votes (exceptions are Nebraska and Maine), whereas the loser of the state gets nothing, even if the margin of victory is exceedingly small (as the case of Florida showed in 2000).