Ohio, A Swing State

Q. What the heck is a swing state?

A.  A swing state is a state that may conceivably vote for for either candidate in a national election.  Ohio is a particularly important swing state for two reasons.  One, Ohio has 21 out of 538 total electoral votes or 3.9 percent of the votes -- a fairly large percentage compared to most states.  And two, Ohio's voters are fairly evenly split between the two major parties and could support either Gore or Bush in the coming election.  Thus Ohio's voters could "swing" either way and influence the final outcome of the election.

Again, according to Old Reliable (aka The Oxford English Dictionary, 2^nd ed):

defintion 3.
In attrib. or semi-adjectival use. a. The electoral sense of Œswing¹ (SWING n.2 8h) applied to a marginal constituency, state, etc.
early usage:
(1980) Washington Post 19 Oct. A5/5 An effort to improve his chances of carrying the 26 electoral votes of that swing state.

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