Swing Voters

August 17, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

It’s election time and the Presidential contenders are spending billions of dollars to win. But what are they spending it on? Rebecca Berg reports:

  • Swing voters – those who aren’t certain yet which candidate they will vote for – make up only about 4% of the electorate.
  • Many of them are located in states which reliably vote for one candidate or another – meaning that their votes won’t matter.
  • It’s the thin sliver of swing voters who live in swing states who will see up to $2 billion spent persuading them.
  • Swing voters have become rarer in recent years as the electorate has become more polarized.
  • Swing voters are more likely to be young, female, or Hispanic.

To read more including the examples of several such swing voters, what the Obama and Romney campaigns have to say, what swing voters look like, how and when they might decide, the importance of the debates, how Romney’s Vice Presidential pick changed things, and other fascinating details, click here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution