As we’re heading into the final stretch of the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, with both candidates officially nominated at their respective parties’ national conventions, President Trump is currently trailing his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in most national polls. As we’ve learned in 2016, polls only go so far in predicting the outcome of the election, though, and in the end, it will likely come down to who comes out victorious in a few battleground states.
Back in 2016, Donald Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, but narrow wins in several swing states were enough to tip the election in his favor and win the presidency. As the following chart shows, large parts of the U.S. are pretty cemented in their political preference, with “red states” slightly outnumbering “blue states” when looking at the results of the past 10 elections.
While 13 states have been won by the Republican candidate in each presidential election since 1980, only two states have exclusively been won by Democrats in the same timeframe.
