- published: 10 Jul 2016
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In presidential politics of the United States, a swing state (also, battleground state or purple state, in reference to red states and blue states) is a state in which no single candidate or party has overwhelming support in securing that state's electoral college votes. Such states receive a large share of the attention and campaigning of 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 where the candidate who wins the most popular votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes. As a result, presidential candidates have reduced incentives to spend time or resources in states they are likely to win or lose by a sizable margin.