Tipping-point state
{{Short description|U.S. state that gives the winner of a presidential election a decisive number of electoral votes}}
{{Use American English|date=November 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2024}}
"Tipping-point state" is used to analyze the median state of a United States presidential election. In a list of states ordered by decreasing margin of victory for the winning candidate, the tipping point state is the first state where the combined electoral votes of all states up to that point in the list give the winning candidate a majority in the Electoral College.
The idea of a "tipping-point state" can be interpreted as suggesting a counterfactual, on the assumption that outcomes in different states are strongly correlated: if the nation-wide vote margin were shifted, but the order of states by vote margin were unchanged, the tipping-point state would be the state or states in which a change in the state winner would result in a change in the national winner. The term may also refer to the state that would give the second-place candidate a majority of the electoral vote when all states are arranged in order of their vote margins; this is typically, but not always, the same state as in the primary definition.
Since the number of electors was set to 538 for the 1964 United States presidential election, 270 electoral votes have been required to win the Electoral College. In some elections, there can be multiple tipping-point states for different candidates: if no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, a contingent election is required in the United States House of Representatives. For example, in the 2020 United States presidential election, if Donald Trump had won Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia, the electoral college would have been tied 269–269: thus, Wisconsin was the tipping-point state for a Biden victory, whereas Pennsylvania, the next-closest, was the tipping-point state for a Trump victory.
Origin
The concept of a tipping-point state was popularized by FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver.{{cite news |last1=Katz |first1=Josh |title=Florida Is Most Likely to Be the Election 'Tipping Point' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/upshot/florida-is-most-likely-to-be-the-election-tipping-point.html |access-date=26 February 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=2 August 2016}} FiveThirtyEight regularly predicts which state will be the tipping-point state in a given presidential election through the site's "Tipping Point Index". Past predictions of tipping-point states include either Michigan or Ohio in the 2008 election,{{cite magazine |last1=Silver |first1=Nate |title=The Tipping-Point States |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/63505/the-tipping-point-states |access-date=26 February 2019 |magazine=The New Republic |date=22 July 2008}} Ohio in the 2012 election,{{cite news |last1=LoGiurato |first1=Brett |title=Mitt Romney Is On The Verge Of A Major Electoral Map Comeback |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-electoral-map-college-swing-states-ohio-florida-obama-2012-10 |access-date=26 February 2019 |work=Business Insider |date=11 October 2012}} Florida in the 2016 election,{{cite web |last1=Hickey |first1=Walt |title=Which Tipping-Point States Favor Trump? |url=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-tipping-point-states-favor-trump/ |website=FiveThirtyEight |access-date=26 February 2019 |date=2 November 2016}} and Pennsylvania in the 2020 election.{{cite web |title=The winding path to victory |url=https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/#ec-margins |website=FiveThirtyEight |access-date=1 November 2020 |date=1 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101172256/https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ |archive-date=1 November 2020}}
Because a majority of the electoral vote is required in order to clinch the presidential election in the Electoral College,{{efn|If no individual wins a majority of the electoral vote, the U.S. House of Representatives determines the winner in a contingent election.}} the tipping-point state for the first-place finisher and the second-place finisher may differ if more than two candidates received electoral votes, or if a shift in the states would leave the electoral vote tied. Tipping-point states may also differ depending on the disposition of faithless electors, on the assumption that certain faithless electors may have chosen to give their vote to the candidate they had pledged to vote for if their vote would have given that candidate a majority of the vote. Because electoral votes are awarded to winners of Washington, D.C. and certain congressional districts,{{efn|Nebraska and Maine award two electoral votes to the statewide winner and award the remainder of their electoral votes based on the winner of each congressional district. Since the 1832 presidential election, the vast majority of states have awarded all of their respective electoral votes to the statewide winner, but various methods have been used historically. In some cases, such as the 1860 United States presidential election in New York, parties have formed fusion tickets in which they agreed to split a state's electoral vote if they won the state.}} it is possible for the tipping-point to be something other than a state.
The tipping-point state is not related to the chronological order in which state-by-state election results are reported, either by media outlets or by state officials. Rather, the media uses decision desks to project the apparent winners of each state before all the votes are counted, and will announce a state that they project will give a candidate enough electoral votes to become the apparent presidential winner. The tipping-point state can only be determined after all the votes in each state are counted and certified, and thus all the vote margins are accurate. For example, the projection of Joe Biden to have won the state of Pennsylvania in the 2020 election made him the projected winner of the electoral college, but for Biden the tipping point state of the 2020 election was Wisconsin, which was called for him three days prior.
Example: 2012 presidential election
=Obama victory tipping point state=
In the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the electoral vote, taking 332 electoral votes compared to 206 for Romney. As with all presidential elections since the 1964 election, 270 electoral votes were needed to win a majority in the Electoral College. Obama would still have won a majority of the electoral vote even if he did not win Virginia, Ohio, and Florida, the three states in which he had his smallest margin of victory. However, if Obama had lost those three states as well as Colorado (where he recorded his fourth-smallest margin of victory), he would not have won a majority of the Electoral College. Thus, Colorado was the tipping point state for an Obama victory in 2012.
| class="wikitable"
|+ 2012 presidential election tipping-point state | |||
| colspan=3 | State
! rowspan=2 | Cumulative Obama | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| State | Obama margin | Electoral votes | |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 19 states + D.C.{{efn|19 states and Washington D.C. voted for Obama by a margin of at least 6 percent in 2012.}} | >6% | 233 | 233 |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| Iowa | 5.81% | 6 | 239 |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| New Hampshire | 5.58% | 4 | 243 |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| Pennsylvania | 5.38% | 20 | 263 |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| Colorado | 5.36% | 9 | 272 |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| Virginia | 3.88% | 13 | 285 |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| Ohio | 2.98% | 18 | 303 |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| Florida | 0.88% | 29 | 332 |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 24 states{{efn|name="Romneystates"|24 states voted for Romney in 2012.}} | <0% | 206 | {{n/a}} |
List of tipping-point states by election
This table shows the tipping point state for the winning candidate in each presidential election since 1832, without any reassignment of faithless electors.
| class="wikitable sortable" | |||||
| Election | State | State margin{{efn|The margin by which the winning candidate won the tipping point state.}} | National margin{{efn|The margin by which the winning candidate won the national popular vote.}} | Margin difference{{efn|The tipping-point state margin subtracted by the national popular vote margin.}} | Winning candidate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1832 | Maine{{efn|Because third party candidates John Floyd and William Wirt each won several electoral votes, Pennsylvania was the tipping point state for a Henry Clay victory.}} | 10.7% | 16.8% | -6.1% | data-sort-value="D" | Andrew Jackson (D) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1836 | Pennsylvania{{efn|Because Hugh Lawson White, Daniel Webster, and Willie Person Mangum each won several electoral votes, and because William Henry Harrison did not appear on the ballot of every state, New York was the tipping point state for a Harrison victory.}} | 2.4% | 14.2% | -11.8% | data-sort-value="D" | Martin Van Buren (D) |
| {{party shading/Whig}}
| 1840 | New Jersey | 3.6% | 6.1% | -2.5% | data-sort-value="W" | William Henry Harrison (W) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1844 | New York | 1.1% | 1.5% | -0.4% | data-sort-value="D" | James K. Polk (D) |
| {{party shading/Whig}}
| 1848 | Pennsylvania | 3.6% | 4.8% | -1.2% | data-sort-value="W" | Zachary Taylor (W) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1852 | New York | 5.2% | 7.0% | -1.8% | data-sort-value="D" | Franklin Pierce (D) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1856 | Tennessee{{efn|Because Millard Fillmore won several electoral votes, and because John C. Fremont did not appear on the ballot of every state, Pennsylvania was the tipping point state for a Fremont victory.}} | 4.4% | 12.2% | -7.8% | data-sort-value="D" | James Buchanan (D) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1860 | New York | 7.4% | 10.1% | -2.7% | data-sort-value="R" | Abraham Lincoln (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1864 | Illinois | 8.8% | 10.1% | -1.3% | data-sort-value="R" | Abraham Lincoln (R){{efn|Hoping to rally War Democrats and other unionists during the American Civil War, the Republican Party campaigned as the National Union Party in the 1864 election.White (2009), pp. 592–593.}} |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1868 | North Carolina{{efn|Arkansas was the tipping point state for a victory by Horatio Seymour.}} | 6.8% | 5.3% | 1.5% | rowspan="2" data-sort-value="R" | Ulysses S. Grant (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1872 | Ohio{{efn|Congress voted to reject the electoral votes of Arkansas and Louisiana on the grounds of election irregularities. If the presidential electors of those states had been accepted by Congress, New Hampshire would have been the tipping point state.}} | 7.1% | 11.8% | -4.7% | |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1876 | South Carolina | 0.5% | -3% | 3.5% | data-sort-value="R" | Rutherford B. Hayes (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1880 | New York | 1.9% | 0.1% | 1.8% | data-sort-value="R" | James A. Garfield (R) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1884 | New York | 0.1% | 0.6% | -0.5% | data-sort-value="D" | Grover Cleveland (D) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1888 | New York | 1.1% | -0.8% | 1.9% | data-sort-value="R" | Benjamin Harrison (R) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1892 | Illinois | 3.1% | 3% | -0.1% | data-sort-value="D" | Grover Cleveland (D) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1896 | Ohio | 4.8% | 4.3% | 0.5% | rowspan="2" data-sort-value="R" | William McKinley (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1900 | Illinois | 8.4% | 6.1% | 2.3% | |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1904 | New Jersey | 18.6% | 18.8% | -0.2% | data-sort-value="R" | Theodore Roosevelt (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1908 | West Virginia | 10.3% | 8.5% | 1.8% | data-sort-value="R" | William Howard Taft (R) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1912 | New York{{efn|Ohio was the tipping point state for a victory by Theodore Roosevelt.}} | 12.6% | 14.4% | -1.8% | rowspan="2" data-sort-value="D" | Woodrow Wilson (D) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1916 | California | 0.4% | 3.1% | -2.7% | |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1920 | Rhode Island | 31.2% | 26.2% | 5.0% | data-sort-value="R" | Warren G. Harding (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1924 | Nebraska | 17.5% | 25.2% | -7.7% | data-sort-value="R" | Calvin Coolidge (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1928 | Illinois | 14.7% | 17.4% | -2.7% | data-sort-value="R" | Herbert Hoover (R) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1932 | Iowa | 17.7% | 17.8% | -0.1% | rowspan="4" data-sort-value="D" | Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1936 | Ohio | 20.1% | 24.3% | -4.2% | |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1940 | Pennsylvania | 6.9% | 10% | -3.1% | |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1944 | New York | 5% | 7.5% | -2.5% | |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1948 | California{{efn|Because third party candidate Strom Thurmond won 39 electoral votes, Illinois was the tipping point state for a victory by Thomas Dewey.}} | 0.4% | 4.5% | -4.1% | data-sort-value="D" | Harry S. Truman (D) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1952 | Michigan | 11.5% | 10.9% | 0.6% | rowspan="2" data-sort-value="R" | Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1956 | Florida | 14.5% | 15.4% | -0.9% | |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1960 | Missouri{{efn|name="e1960"|In 1960, because of unpledged electors who cast their votes for Harry F. Byrd, New Jersey was the tipping point state for a Nixon victory.}} | 0.5% | 0.2% | 0.3% | data-sort-value="D" | John F. Kennedy (D) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1964 | Washington{{Cite news |url=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-the-electoral-college-doom-the-democrats-again/ |title=Will The Electoral College Doom The Democrats Again? |last=Silver |first=Nate |date=14 November 2016 |work=FiveThirtyEight |access-date=10 March 2019 |language=en-US}} | 24.6% | 22.3% | 2.3% | data-sort-value="D" | Lyndon B. Johnson (D) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1968 | Ohio{{efn|name="e1968"|Because third party candidate George Wallace won several electoral votes, Illinois was the tipping point state for a victory by Hubert Humphrey.}} | 2.3% | 0.7% | 1.6% | rowspan="2" data-sort-value="R" | Richard Nixon (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1972 | Ohio{{efn|name="e1972"|Because of a faithless elector, Maine was the tipping point state for a George McGovern victory.}} | 21.6% | 23.2% | -1.6% | |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1976 | Wisconsin | 1.7% | 2.1% | -0.4% | data-sort-value="D" | Jimmy Carter (D) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1980 | Illinois | 7.9% | 9.7% | -1.8% | rowspan="2" data-sort-value="R" | Ronald Reagan (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1984 | Michigan | 19% | 18.2% | 0.8% | |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 1988 | Michigan | 7.9% | 7.7% | 0.2% | data-sort-value="R" | George H. W. Bush (R) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1992 | Tennessee | 4.7% | 5.6% | -0.9% | rowspan="2" data-sort-value="D" | Bill Clinton (D) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 1996 | Pennsylvania | 9.2% | 8.5% | 0.7% | |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 2000 | Florida | 0.0%{{efn|George W. Bush won Florida by 0.0092% in the 2000 presidential election.}} | -0.5% | 0.5% | rowspan="2" data-sort-value="R" | George W. Bush (R) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 2004 | Ohio | 2.1% | 2.5% | -0.4% | |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 2008 | Colorado{{efn|Broke a possible tie in the Electoral College. As a result, Iowa was the tipping point state for a John McCain victory.|name=|group=}} | 9.0% | 7.3% | 1.7% | rowspan="2" data-sort-value="D" | Barack Obama (D) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 2012 | Colorado | 5.4% | 3.9% | 1.5% | |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 2016 | Pennsylvania{{efn|name="e2016"|Without assigning faithless electors to the winners of their respective states, Pennsylvania was the tipping point state for a Trump victory.{{cite news |last1=Bump |first1=Philip |title=Here are the states that have been the most likely to deliver the presidency |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/01/here-are-states-which-have-been-most-likely-deliver-presidency/ |newspaper=Washington Post |date=November 1, 2020}} Wisconsin was the tipping point state for a Hillary Clinton victory, and was also the tipping point state for a Trump victory if faithless electors are assigned to the winners of their respective states.{{cite web |last1=Silver |first1=Nate |title=Donald Trump Had A Superior Electoral College Strategy |url=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trump-had-a-superior-electoral-college-strategy/ |website=FiveThirtyEight |access-date=26 February 2019 |date=6 February 2017}}}} | 0.7% | -2.1% | 2.8% | data-sort-value="R" | Donald Trump (R) |
| {{party shading/Democratic}}
| 2020 | Wisconsin{{Cite news |url=https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/wisconsin-decisive-again-in-2020/ |title=Wisconsin: Decisive Again In 2020 |last=Coleman |first=J. Miles|date=19 November 2020 |work=Center For Politics |access-date=9 December 2020 |language=en-US}}{{efn|Broke a possible tie in the Electoral College. As a result, Pennsylvania was the tipping point state for a Donald Trump victory.}} | 0.6% | 4.4% | -3.8% | data-sort-value="D" | Joe Biden (D) |
| {{party shading/Republican}}
| 2024 | Pennsylvania{{Cite web|url=https://abcnews.go.com/538/2024-presidential-election-close-landslide/story?id=116240898|title=The 2024 presidential election was close, not a landslide|first1=Nathaniel|last1=Rakich|first2=Amina|last2=Brown|website=ABC News|date=November 26, 2024|access-date=December 5, 2024}} | 1.7% | 1.5% | 0.2% | data-sort-value="D" | Donald Trump (R) |
=Tipping-point states by frequency=
The following states have been the tipping-point state for the winning candidate (without accounting for any change in the disposition of faithless electors) beginning with the 1832 election:
| class="wikitable" | |
| Times | State(s) |
|---|---|
| 8 | New York |
| 6 | Ohio, Pennsylvania |
| 5 | Illinois |
| 3 | Michigan |
| 2 | California, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, Tennessee, Wisconsin |
| 1 | Iowa, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Washington, West Virginia |
Notes
{{noteslist}}
References
{{Reflist}}
=Works cited=
{{refbegin}}
- {{Cite book|ref=White|last=White, Jr.|first=Ronald C.|title=A. Lincoln: A Biography|publisher=Random House|year=2009|isbn=978-1-4000-6499-1|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781400064991}}
{{refend}}
{{United States presidential elections}}