| dbo:abstract
|
- In United States presidential elections, the tipping-point state is the first state that gives the winning candidate a majority of electoral votes, thereby securing the candidate's victory in the Electoral College, when all states are arranged in decreasing order of their vote margins for the ultimate winner. The tipping-point state can be interpreted as 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 (see section for exceptions). Since the number of electors was set at 538 prior to the 1964 United States presidential election, 270 votes have been necessary to win the Electoral College. In some elections, there can be multiple tipping-point states for different candidates, since if no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, there is instead a contingent election in the United States House of Representatives. For example, in the 2020 United States presidential election, if Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia had gone to Donald Trump, the electoral college would've been tied 269-269, making Wisconsin the tipping-point state for a Biden victory, but Pennsylvania, the next-closest, a tipping-point state for a Trump victory. (en)
|
