Swing vote

"Swing Vote" redirects here. For other uses, see Swing Vote (disambiguation).

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A swing vote is a vote that is seen as potentially going to any of a number of candidates in an election, or, in a two-party system, may go to either of the two dominant political parties. Such votes are usually sought after in election campaigns, since they can play a big role in determining the outcome.

A swing voter or floating voter is a voter who may not be affiliated with a particular political party (Independent) or who will vote across party lines. In American politics, many centrists, liberal Republicans, and conservative Democrats are considered "swing voters" since their voting patterns cannot be predicted with certainty.

While the swing voter is ostensibly the target of most political activity during elections, in countries without compulsory voting the outcome is dependent on swing voters only to a limited extent. Another, arguably larger factor is the success of each party in rallying its core support. In a two-party system, those who become disillusioned with their once-favored party are more likely to vote third-party or abstain than cross over.

Smaller groups that use voting to decide matters, such as chambers of parliament and supreme courts, can also have swing voters. The smaller the group, the more power swing voters can have. For example, on a court of seven judges, of which three are committed to each side of a case, the seventh judge may be seen as single-handedly deciding the case.

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In an election, there are "certain" or "lock" votes, voters who are solidly behind or partisan to a particular candidate and will not consider changing their minds whatever the opposition says. Swing voters are undecided about how they will vote. They are sometimes referred to as undecideds, undecided voters, or floating voter.

They may be dissatisfied party members who are open to the idea of voting for other parties, or they could be officially registered as "independents" or simply people who have never had a strong affiliation with any political party and will vote depending on certain things that influence them: healthcare, benefits, election campaign, etc.

Some might be people who have never exercised their right to vote before, such as those just reaching voting age. Some, but not all, swing voters are considered to be "low-information voters." Because the votes of swing voters are considered to be "up for grabs," candidates direct a fair proportion of campaign effort towards them, but they must also be concerned with voter turnout among their political base. There is a perception that swing voters are primarily motivated by self-interest rather than values or ideology and so are particularly susceptible to pork barreling.

If a constituency contains a large proportion of swing voters it is often called a marginal seat and extensive campaign resources are poured into it.

Demographics within the United States

An April 2016 poll by the Progressive Policy Institute examined voters in the U.S. states considered "battlegrounds" in the upcoming presidential election (Florida, Ohio, Colorado and Nevada). Swing voters were slightly more likely to be women (52 percent women, 48 percent men) and slightly less likely to have a college degree (44 percent) than voters overall in these states (48 percent). By contrast, race was a significant determinant, especially for African-Americans. While 7 percent of poll respondents identified as African-American, only 2 percent of swing voters were African-American. Latinos (12 percent of poll respondents) were represented more proportionately (13 percent of swing voters).

"Overall, white voters are likely to swing the outcome of a national election by an average of 10 percentage points—voting more Democratic in elections Democrats win and more Republican in elections Republicans win," according to a 2008 report by the Democratic Leadership Council. Most of this (6.7 of the 10 percentage points) is due to those white people who have only a high school education.

In mid-term and presidential elections from 1992 to 2014, people who self-identified as "gay, lesbian, or bisexual" voted consistently "around 75 percent Democratic within a range of 67 to 81 percent." In the 2016 presidential election, people who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender cast 78 percent of their votes for the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Among people who identify as gay and bisexual, men's support for Democratic candidates in the 1990s Congressional elections (held every two years from 1990 to 1998) was more consistent than women's. Across these five elections, men's support ranged from 67 percent to 75 percent, while women's support ranged from 53 percent to 82 percent. This suggests that lesbian and bisexual women may be more likely swing voters, at least over time, if not necessarily for any given election. There are also differences by state: "California GLB voters are more likely to identify as 'Independent' than are GLB voters nationally, and therefore have a greater potential to play the role of a swing vote in a close election."

Impact

Swing voters occasionally play a huge part in elections. First-time voters and swing voters are usually credited for helping Jesse Ventura win the Minnesota gubernatorial election in 1998. Swing voters who support third-party candidates take potential votes away from the major candidates. Ventura was a third-party candidate; his opponents were seen as two weak major-party candidates, and this situation created many more swing voters than usual. This resulted in Jesse Ventura, the third-party candidate, winning the election.

In the Supreme Court of the United States the swing justice, such as Anthony Kennedy, essentially decides the overall outcome of the ruling during a split, which can mean highly impacting landmark decisions such as the effective decision of the President of the United States in the 2000 election was ultimately made by Kennedy in the Bush v. Gore case.

Examples

Common examples of swing voters include "Reagan Democrats" (Democrats who voted for Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980s) and "Clinton Conservatives" (Republicans who voted for Bill Clinton). In her 2012 book The Swing Vote, Linda Killian divides the American swing vote into 4 factions: NPR Republicans, America First Democrats, the Facebook Generation, and Starbucks Moms and Dads. On the Supreme Court of the United States, Associate Justices Potter Stewart, Byron White, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Anthony Kennedy have been described as swing votes between the two factions of the court. In the United Kingdom, the "Essex man", "Worcester woman" and "Holby City woman" are examples of personifications of swing voters.

See also

• Voter apathy
• Marginal seat
• Swing (politics)
• Swing state

Further reading

• Dalton, Philip (2006). Swing Voting: Understanding Late Deciders in Late Modernity. Cresskill: Hampton Press. ISBN 1-57273-655-0.
• Killian, Linda (2012). The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-58177-0.
• Gelman, Andrew; Goel, Sharad; Rivers, Douglas; Rothschild, David (April 2016). "The mythical swing voter". Quarterly Journal of Political Science. Now Publishing Inc. 11 (1): 103–130. arXiv:1406.7581. doi:10.1561/100.00015031.