Some states will always and forever be red or blue. But a few others are notorious swing states, with a pretty even collection of conservative and liberal voters who can steer their state either way. This has been especially true so far during this rollercoaster of an election process. The states that traditionally hang in the middle have been the ones to watch, as well as a few others that have seen voters running (somewhat surprisingly) to vote for a different party.
In an effort to turn more blue states red, Trump's campaign spent the past week airing $25 million worth of TV ads in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Nevada, and New Hampshire, according to Eric Bradner on CNN.com. These states are where the votes could go either way — unlike traditionally red states like Texas where Trump has pretty much always had it in the bag.
And Trump's efforts seems to have worked for many of them. For the republican candidate to get the required 270 electoral votes, he absolutely had to win Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina, according to Bradner. And, of course, he already has.
This has obviously come as quite the shock. "Campaign advisers to Mrs. Clinton watched with increasing alarm on Tuesday night as healthy leads that had been predicted in polling for much of the past several months appeared to evaporate as votes were tallied," noted an article in The New York Times.
It still remains to be seen what will come of this election. But if those swing states are any indication, there's really no predicting which others might flip.
