Talk:Swing state
From Academic Kids
I deleted "more Presidents have come from Ohio than from any other state" since it listed 5. There have been 7 or 8 from Virginia. RickK | Talk 04:10, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Wow, I should have realized that. I thought for sure I'd heard that there were more Ohioans than any other; my fault for not thinking of Virginia. Dur. Meelar 06:39, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
First time commenting here, hope I don't blow it up. But Ohio went for Nixon in 1960, one of the very few times (I believe FDR in 1944 was the only other in the 20th c.) that it didn't break for the winner. I've never been able to find a source to back this up, but allegedly Kennedy said that Ohio "broke his heart." - DavidNYC, author of the Swing State Project http://www.swingstateproject.com
Whoever listed Delaware, what was the source? Doubts have been raised. Yours, Meelar 23:24, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Meelar, thanks for stopping by my blog. I think the confusion about Delaware is that while it's been a *bellwether* for a very long time (since 1952, in fact) - in other words, it's gone with the winner every time (except in 2000) - it isn't very likely to swing back to the GOP anymore. I'm not sure why that is precisely, but it favored Gore by a large margin in 2000 and is likely to go Dem again by a big margin this year. Basically, almost no one I know of thinks DE is in play this time around, and I'd be very surprised if either candidate spends any time or money there. - DavidNYC
One other bit of color, in case you are interested: Ohio actually went with the winner in every election from 1900 to 2000 except in 1944 (when it went for Dewey by less than 0.5%) and 1960 (when it went for Nixon by about 6.5%). - DavidNYC
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No consistent distinction between swing and battleground states
68.167.249.223 02:38, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC): Based on a random review of reputable news and .edu websites, the distinction made here and in battleground state between the two terms does not reflect reality:
News
- http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/politics/campaign2004/03%20battleground.pdf PDF
- http://www.cnn.com/interactive/allpolitics/0010/battleground.states/battlegroundstates.html
- http://www.economist.com/World/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2651806
- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120492,00.html
- http://slate.msn.com/id/2101779/
- http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-02-26-ohio-battleground_x.htm
Universities
- http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/battleground04.html
- http://www.usfca.edu/fromm/lubalin.html
- http://www.ithaca.edu/library/htmls/elect.html
- http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/csp/elections/
- http://www.nyu.edu/ofp/news.html
The two terms are used interchangeably; if these sites don't convince, do your own search on the two terms. I proposed eliminating the distinction and redirecting references into a common article.
- I found these to be very convincing. Nice work, and thank you! Have you considered creating an account? These articles could use you. Anyway, I agree with your suggestion--I think battleground state should, in light of this, redirect to swing state (I'm not just being arbitrary--"swing state" gets 38,000 google hits (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=%22swing+state%22), while "battleground state" gets half as many (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22battleground+state%22)). Jengod, any objections? Best wishes, Meelar 05:09, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- 67.100.125.66 04:38, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC): Updated to reflect this...
2004 swing states
Having three different lists of swing states in this section seems a bit unnecessary to me; it also makes the article harder to read. How about purging the third one and change the preceding paragraph into something like "A survey conducted by a firm for the Bush campaign also gave a figure of 19 states, but with one change: It cited Colorado instead of Delaware."
Also, the criteria for inclusion on the first list in the paragraph (the bullet list of "close outcomes") are unclear. Especially North Carolina's merits can be doubted. The percentage margin was smaller in California (11.8%) as well as in Vermont (9.9%). The difference in number of votes was smaller in several states, including, obviously, several rock-solid Republican states with populations hardly reaching the NC victory margin, such as Montana and Wyoming. I assume NC is listed here due to the possibility of an Edwards factor, but in my opinion it would then make more sense mentioning the state later in the paragraph instead. Or, even better, merging the lists into one, preferrably sorted by victory margin. Alarm 18:29, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I think this section should break out to become its out article ✏ Sverdrup 11:42, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Post-November
This page could use some contemporary additions.
