The United States’ Presidential election is top of mind around the world, as leadership of this powerful nation impacts every other nation. For us, at InterKnowlogy, this election is especially important because we build the software that makes election data easier to understand and more interesting for viewers of election coverage by news broadcasters. We helped CNN build the “Magic Wall” in America, we helped 7News build the “Screen of Dreams” in Australia, and we implemented our own “Election Insights” product for SVT in Sweden -- which was used for Swedish Elections as well as the EU Elections.  

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This is the first article in a series of many, also called “Election Insights,” where we aim to share what we’ve learned from many years of bringing voting data to life for viewers of major election broadcasts.  

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Cyrus Doomasia is the Head of Delivery at InterKnowlogy and has deep expertise in high profile election broadcast projects. I recently sat down with Cyrus and had a face-to-face discussion about the interesting and important topic of ‘swing state’ voting. I started by asking, “Why is swing state voting so important in US Presidential elections?”

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Cyrus, with evident enthusiasm in his voice, began explaining to me that in most American states, the way the system is set up, the winner is easily predetermined. Even before elections happen, you sort of know who's going to win that state. For example, we already know, that California and New York are most likely going to be blue, whereas states like Wyoming and West Virginia are most likely going to be red.

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I quickly understood what Cyrus was saying, but the ‘why’ remained unclear to me. Noticing this, Cyrus continued by explaining that the results in most states are easily predetermined because in the US Electoral College system all the states (except for Nebraska and Maine) give all the electoral votes to the party with the popular vote in that state.

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For example, if you take the state of Texas and say the Republican Party wins 52% of the votes and the Democratic Party wins 48%, even though the election might seem close, all the 40 electoral votes in that state will go to the Republicans in a winner takes all dynamic.

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The candidate who will win the Presidency comes down to which candidate can win the swing states. The swing states are the states where the populations are very closely divided politically. These battleground states are where the political parties spend most of their campaign money, whether it's on advertisements, campaign visits, or any other activity.

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Making the point more abundantly clear, as numbers often do, Cyrus added that this year’s Presidential election is going to be the costliest in history. The prediction is that about $2.1 billion are going to be spent on the elections, and out of that the estimate is that about 75% of the $2.1 billion is going to be spent on the swing states.

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Now that I’d gained a beginner’s knowledge in the importance of swing states, I was wondering which actual states they are in 2024 and whether this changes from election to election. Cyrus, ever-glad to enlighten me, explained that the five states that are traditionally the swing states are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But some experts say that this year North Carolina and Minnesota could also be swing states.  

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The margin of victory in US Presidential elections have often been surprisingly thin. David Schultz, a political science professor in the United States, says that it's not even the swing states, but the handful of counties in those states, that determine the ultimate winner. He has framed the term 5-5-5-270 theory, which proposes that the states indeed decide the winner, but within each of those 5 swing states, there are 5% of voters in 5 key counties that determine who gets the 270 electoral votes and wins the presidency.  

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Eventually my conversation with Cyrus ended and I was left to think it all over and package what I’d learned, as neatly as possible, into an answer to the question: why is swing state voting so important in US elections?

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Here is what I’ve come up with:

The result of voting in most states is predictable and it is not worth investing substantial campaign funds into those.

The result of voting in about a handful of states is not predictable and it is worth investing substantial campaign funds into those.

Who will win the presidency comes down to which candidate can win the swing states.

The swing states are the states where the populations are, politically, very closely divided.

But we can get more granular: based on 5-5-5-270 theory, looking at the popular vote on a national level is not very useful to predict who is going to be the president. It all comes down to the 5% of voters in 5 the key counties of the 5 swing states.  

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