swing state

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swing state (plural swing states)

1. (US politics) A state which may vote Democratic or Republican, in a given election or generally.

   Synonyms: battleground state, purple state

This term does not refer to the elastic nature of a state's voters; a state that votes 72% for Republicans in one election cycle and 62% in the next is not a swing state, even though a ten percent shift is an enormous change in voting results by modern American standards.