Fivethirtyeight.com graphic showing voting behavior in four swing states, 2000–2020; 2020 projection based on 25 August data
3 November 2020
In U.S. politics, a swing state is one that either political party has a reasonable chance of winning. The metaphor is, obviously, that of oscillating back and forth. The term swing state dates to the mid twentieth century, but the use of the verb to swing in political contexts is much older.
Use of the verb this way dates to at least 1900, and I’m sure it can be antedated into the nineteenth century. It appears in the Philadelphia Inquirer in its 21 October 1900 reporting of a New York Herald poll of the presidential election that year:
Nebraska . . . . . . Democratic . . . . . 8,000
Idaho . . . . . . . . . Democratic . . . . . 8,000
Montana. . . . . . . Democratic . . . . . 8,000
Utah—Mormons can swing State either way.
Swing state itself appears in the pages of the Dallas Morning News of 16 August 1948. The columnist, Lynn Landrum, errs in predicting a Thomas Dewey victory in that year’s election (to be fair, as pretty much everyone knows, she wasn’t the only one), but she was right in that had Texas gone for Dewey the outcome of the election would not have changed and Truman would still have been re-elected, and she was correct in predicting what happens to states that reliably vote for one party—they are often ignored by the political process:
The likelihood now is that Tom Dewey will be the next President, no matter how Texas votes. The only thing that Texans might change by their votes is the amount of weight Texas will be given in future party convention plans.
Once Texas is known to be a “swing” state, no major political party will ever again ignore Texas.
Texas would become competitive in the next election cycle, with Eisenhower wining it in 1952. And it would remain competitive until 2000, by which time it had become solidly Republican. Although it once again is showing signs of becoming a swing state.
Sources:
Landrum, Lynn. “Thinking Out Loud.” Dallas Morning News, 16 August 1948, 3. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. swing-, comb. form.
“Result of the Herald’s Poll in ‘Doubtful States.’” Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 October 1900, 1. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Image credit: Fivethirtyeight.com, 1 September 2020.