In United States presidential politics, a swing state (also, battleground state or purple state) is a state in which no single candidate or party has overwhelming support in securing that state's electoral college votes. Such states are targets of both major political parties in presidential elections, since winning these states is the best opportunity for a party to gain electoral votes. Non-swing states are sometimes called safe states, because one candidate has strong enough support that he or she can safely assume that he or she will win the state's votes.

In U.S. presidential elections, the Electoral College system allows each state to decide the method by which it awards electors. Since in most states the legislature wants to increase the voting power of the majority, all states except Maine and Nebraska (explained below) use a winner-take-all system (as opposed to a majority electoral system) where the candidate who wins the most popular votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes. Under this system no advantage is gained by winning more than a plurality of the vote, nor is there any advantage gained by winning additional votes in a state that will still be lost. In other words, Presidential candidates have no incentive to spend time or resources in states they are likely to win or lose by a sizable margin.

John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is a prominent member of the Bush family: the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush; the younger brother of former President George W. Bush; and the older brother of Neil Bush, Marvin Bush, and Dorothy Bush Koch.

Jeb Bush was born in Midland, Texas. When he was six years old, the family relocated to Houston, Texas.

Following in the footsteps of older brother, George, Jeb Bush attended high school at the private Massachusetts boarding school, Phillips Academy Andover. At the age of 17, he taught English as a second language in León, Guanajuato, Mexico, as part of Phillips Academy's student exchange program. While in Mexico, he met wife, Columba Garnica Gallo.

In 1973, Bush graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in Latin American Studies. He completed his coursework in two and a half years with generally excellent grades. After considering a career in Hollywood, he instead chose to pursue politics.