swing state
(noun)
A state which may vote Democratic or Republican, in a given election or generally; a purple state.
Examples of swing state in the following topics:
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The Electoral College
- In nearly all states, electors are awarded to the candidate who wins the most votes in that state on a winner-take-all basis.
- Critics argue that the Electoral College is inherently undemocratic and gives swing states disproportionate influence in electing the President and Vice President.
- Swing states are those that are up for grabs in any given election; historically, they have swung back and forth between Democrats and Republicans.
- However, many of them have large numbers of Electoral College votes, meaning that candidates play to voters in swing states more than in other states.
- This shows the influence of the Electoral College on the prominence of swing states, those with small populations but large Electoral College votes.
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The General Election Campaign
- Whichever candidate wins the majority of votes in the state receives that state's Electoral College votes.
- Electoral College votes are divided proportionally based on state population, meaning that larger states have more influence in the election than smaller ones .
- Because a candidate only needs to win a majority of votes in the state to receive all of its Electoral College votes, this system has lead to election strategies in which states with a solid Republican or Democratic majority are not contested by candidates.
- Instead, candidates focus their campaigns on so-called "swing states. " Swing states are those without a clear majority party, in which all of the state's Electoral College votes are therefore up for grabs.
- The most notorious swing states in recent years have been Florida and Ohio, since each is generally unpredictable, and each has a significant number of Electoral College electors.
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The Election of 1888
- The 1888 election for President of the United States saw Grover Cleveland of New York, the incumbent president and a Democrat, try to secure a second term against the Republican nominee Benjamin Harrison, a former U.S.
- On the other hand, he held a strong hand in the South and border states, and appealed to former Republican Mugwumps.
- Harrison swept almost the entire North and Midwest, losing only Connecticut and New Jersey, but carried the swing states of New York and Indiana to achieve a majority of the electoral vote.
- Unlike the election of 1884, the power of the Tammany Hall political machine in New York City helped deny Cleveland the electoral votes of his home state.
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The Nomination Campaign
- A United States presidential nominating convention is a political convention held every four years in the United States by most of the political parties who will be fielding nominees in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
- Much of the modern electoral process is concerned with winning "swing states" through frequent visits and mass media advertising drives.
- Presidents are elected indirectly in the United States.
- On Election Day, voters in each of the states and the District of Columbia cast ballots for these electors.
- Generally, the ticket that wins the most votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes, and thus has its slate of electors chosen to vote in the Electoral College.
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Political Party Leader
- The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States.
- The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.
- Since the founding of the United States, the power of the president and the federal government have grown substantially, and each modern president, despite possessing no formal legislative powers beyond signing or vetoing congressionally passed bills, is largely responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of his party and the foreign and domestic policy of the United States .
- These reports may be either written or oral, but today are given as the State of the Union Address, which often outlines the president's legislative proposals for the coming year.
- Much of the modern electoral process is concerned with winning swing states through frequent visits and mass media advertising drives.
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Electoral Districts
- Seats in the United States House of Representatives, for instance, are reapportioned to individual states every 10 years following a census, with some states that have grown in population gaining seats.
- The United States Senate, by contrast, is apportioned without regard to population; every state gets exactly two senators.
- The United States Senate, by contrast, is apportioned without regard to population; every state gets exactly two senators.
- Conversely, a swing seat is one that could easily swing either way.
- In United Kingdom general elections, the voting in a relatively small number of swing seats usually determines the outcome of the entire election.
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Defining probability exercises
- (a) Are being Independent and being a swing voter disjoint, i.e. mutually exclusive?
- (c) What percent of voters are Independent but not swing voters?
- (e) What percent of voters are neither Independent nor swing voters?
- (f) P(Independent) × P(swing) = 0.35 × 0.23 = 0.08, which does not equal P(Independent and swing) = 0.11, so the events are dependent.
- If you stated that this difference might be due to sampling variability in the survey, that answer would also be reasonable (we'll dive into this topic more in later chapters).
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Popular Culture
- Despite the Great Depression, popular culture flourished in the United States of the 1930s.
- Virtuoso soloists often led their swing big bands (thus swing was also known as "big jazz") and their popularity was enormous, also because swing music developed with corresponding swing dance.
- Live swing bands were broadcast on the radio nationally every evening.
- The time between 1935 and 1946 is known as the Swing Era.
- The United States considered boycotting the Games, as to participate in the festivity might be considered a sign of support for the Nazi regime and its anti-Semitic policies.
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Time
- For example, the movement of the sun across the sky, the phases of the moon, the swing of a pendulum, and the beat of a heart have all been used as a standard for time keeping.
- The second is now operationally defined as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom."
- It follows that the hyperfine splitting in the ground state of the cesium 133 atom is exactly 9,192,631,770 hertz .
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The Benefits of Mixed Economies
- A mixed economy allows private participation in production while ensuring that society is protected from the full swings of the market.
- They provide tax-funded, subsidized, or state-owned factors of production, infrastructure, and services:
- Private investment, freedom to buy, sell, and profit, combined with economic planning by the state, including significant regulations (e.g. wage or price controls), taxes, tariffs, and state-directed investment.