Tipping-point state

In United States presidential elections, the tipping-point state is the closest state that gives the winning candidate 270 or more electoral votes, thereby securing his or her victory in the Electoral College, when all states are arranged in order of their vote margins. Equivalently, if the tipping-point state and all states with a smaller vote margin were transferred from the winner to the second-place finisher, the outcome of the election would be reversed.

In elections where at least three individuals receive electoral votes, there can be more than one tipping point state. 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.

The concept of a tipping point state was first popularized by FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver.[1] FiveThirtyEight regularly predicts which state will be the tipping-point state in a given presidential election through his site's "Tipping Point Index". Past predictions of tipping-point states include either Michigan or Ohio in the 2008 election,[2] Ohio in the 2012 election,[3] and Florida in the 2016 election.[4]

Past tipping-point states
Election yearState
1828New York
1832Maine
1836Pennsylvania
1840New Jersey
1844New York
1848Pennsylvania
1852New York
1856Tennessee
1860New York
1864Indiana
1868North Carolina
1872North Carolina
1876South Carolina
1880New York
1884New York
1888New York
1892Illinois
1896Ohio
1900Illinois
1904New Jersey
1908West Virginia
1912New York
1916California
1920Kansas
1924Nebraska
1928Illinois
1932Iowa
1936Ohio
1940Pennsylvania
1944New York
1948California
1952Maryland
1956Florida
1960New Mexico (for a Nixon win)
Missouri (for a Kennedy win)[5]
1964Washington[5]
1968Illinois and Ohio[5]
1972Maine and Ohio[5]
1976Wisconsin[1]
1980Illinois[1]
1984Michigan[1]
1988Michigan[1]
1992Tennessee[1]
1996Pennsylvania[1]
2000Florida[1]
2004Ohio[1]
2008Colorado[1]
2012Colorado[1]
2016Wisconsin (excluding faithless electors)[6]
Pennsylvania (including faithless electors)[6]

References
  1. Katz, Josh (2 August 2016). "Florida Is Most Likely to Be the Election 'Tipping Point'". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  2. Silver, Nate (22 July 2008). "The Tipping-Point States". The New Republic. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  3. LoGiurato, Brett (11 October 2012). "Mitt Romney Is On The Verge Of A Major Electoral Map Comeback". Business Insider. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  4. Hickey, Walt (2 November 2016). "Which Tipping-Point States Favor Trump?". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  5. Silver, Nate (14 November 2016). "Will The Electoral College Doom The Democrats Again?". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  6. Silver, Nate (6 February 2017). "Donald Trump Had A Superior Electoral College Strategy". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved 26 February 2019.


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