Swing States [Updated June 2023]

In the United States, a president is elected every four years. Some states in the U.S. are known as blue states, meaning that the Democratic presidential candidate will most likely win. There are also red states, which means that the Republican presidential candidate is most likely to get the majority votes. However, there are a handful of states that are known as swing states.

Swing states, which are also called purple states or battleground states, are states that don't lean toward one particular party. In these states, all major parties campaign heavily to get votes during competitive elections. In these states, it is often a very close race across the major parties. Swing states are the most critical states in many elections, as they are the tipping point for which candidate will win the Electoral College.

The battleground states may change during different election cycles. Polling data, nominees' ideologies, and demographics can be looked at to determine which states are considered swing states during any given election.

However, there are a few "perennial" swing states, meaning that election results have been close multiple times throughout the last several campaigns. Based on analytics from the last few presidential campaigns, the following states have been named as perennial swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

2020 Election Swing States

The follow states were swing states in the 2020 Presidential Election: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Of these states, President Joe Biden won Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Maine (three of the state's four electoral votes), Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump won Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas. Biden won the election with 306 electoral votes vs. Trump's 232 electoral votes.