FLORIDA, USA — Many nationwide polls suggest that seven swing states, also known as battleground states, will decide the winner of the 2024 Presidential Election.
According to NBC News' final poll in the race for the White House between Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee former President Donald Trump, the contest is hotly contested, with each candidate receiving 49% of support from the registered voters in the poll.
So, what is a swing state? A swing state is defined as a U.S. state in which Republic and Democratic candidates have similar levels of support and which is considered to play a key role in the outcome of presidential elections, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
When looking at figures from the Florida Department of State's website, numbers do not indicate that the 'Sunshine State' is a swing state this election cycle. The number of registered active voters in Florida who are affiliated with the Republican Party are 5,455,480, while the number of registered active voters in Florida who are affiliated with the Democratic Party are 4,400,561. There are 3.5 million active voters in the state who do not affiliate with any political party.
Florida's changing political landscape is unusual because of how quickly it became so conservative. In 2016, Democrats held a 330,428 voter registration edge over Republicans and in 2020, Democrats held about a 97,000 voter registration edge over Republicans. Since then, there has been a rapid increase in registered Republican voters.
Democrats often point to demographic shifts in Florida being one reason for the voter registration edge, since a major influx of voters came into the state when Gov. Ron DeSantis emerged as a leader of the GOP's resistance to pandemic public health policies. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated an average of about 667 more people moved into the state than moved away every day between 2020 and 2021, but it did not specify their political party.
A Republican-backed law also took effect in 2023, which cracked down on third-party voter registration organizations that mobilized minority and college-age voters, which tend to vote Democrat. The law in part raised the fines for violations like turning in paperwork to the wrong county or hiring a noncitizen volunteer, from $1,000 to $250,000, and reduced the amount of time the groups can return registration applications from 14 days to 10 days.
The last time Florida voted blue in a presidential election was in 2012 when former President Barack Obama won reelection, whereas the last time Florida was considered a swing state was in 2000 when George W. Bush won the election over Al Gore. There were 537 more votes in Florida that separated Bush from Gore when a recount was done.
So, what are the swing states this election season? They are Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
