What is a swing district?
It is a congressional district, where for a variety of reasons, Democrats and / or Republicans consider the seat winnable for either party. To be more technical, the Cook Political Report is perhaps the leader here and defines a swing district as any district where the Cook Partisan Voting Index is between D+5 and R+5. These ratings mean that compared to the average of the nation as a whole the district voted in that direction that many points. So suppose the nation was 50D/50R, a D+5 district would be 55D/45R and an R+5 district would be 45D/55R.
Who lives in a swing district?
Any given swing district is a microcosm of the overall United States political landscape. And that overall landscape is that American politics are as polarized as ever. As pertains to districts, gerrymandering is quite prevalent in the United States, meaning districts – even swing districts – were often created in a partisan way to produce partisan results. It should also be noted that swing districts have been decreasing in number, with 164 such districts in 1996 and 72 districts in 2016. (Source – you’ll have to put in some contact information to download.)
There are general trends that hold true about voters in a given district – in urban areas there are more Democrats and in rural areas there are more Republicans. There are also a good chunk of Independents – people who when they registered chose a third party or simply “not D or R”. Non 3rd party Independents (38%) actually outnumber both Democrats (31%) and Republicans (26%) respectively. Finally, there are a good chunk of people who don’t vote at all. It can’t be stated enough that the Non Voters are a significant block. For example, in 2016, 41.3% of eligible voters did not vote, and while we’re still waiting on 2020 data, roughly 36% of eligible voters did not vote. This means Non Voters remain the largest “voting” bloc in American politics, even in the wake of 2020’s “most important ever” election.
Democrats + Republicans + Independents + Non Voters = 100%
There are general trends about the demographics of these voters in swing districts – race skews towards whites and people are more likely to have insurance. Check out the full quorum.us report here.
Who are the non voters?
The best resouce I have found to understand non voters comes from the Knight Foundation and their The 100 Million project, and in particular their excellent report available here. They identify a shared trend in losing trust in their vote mattering, further breaking down this ~40% of all eligible voters into the following six demographics:
21% – Established Progressives
17% – Traditional Conservatives
20% – Modern Moderates
17% – Indifferent Average
17% – Unattached Apoliticals
8.4% – Underemployed Unsures
I don’t want to crib the whole report, so please do read it for yourself.
How do you win in a swing district?
Frankly, it will depend on the swing district.
However, generally speaking, incumbents have a large advantage so the best way to win a swing district is to have won it already.
The reason incumbents have an advantage is because they definitionally already have a relationship with some of their constituents that challengers do not even if it as simple as name recognition. Ergo, successful challengers must build their own relationship advantage. I believe that in American politics – especially given that ~40% of Americans don’t vote because they’ve lost faith in their vote making a difference – the key to building such relationships as a candidate is to have clear, consistent values and work hard to understand what your constituents need and fight for policy that meets those needs while staying true to your values.
The people not caught up in the partisan politics that dominate the day will vote for you but only if they believe in you and what you can do for them. Ergo, a successful candidate secures the pertinent Democrat or Republican votes easily through partisanship and then goes on to win by earning the trust of other constituents that their vote matters.