The longer-term electoral effect of carrying a state in U.S. presidential elections

Abstract

Under the U.S. Electoral College system, battleground states receive a degree of attention from candidates and political parties that is out of proportion to their contribution to the vote total because they can effectively determine the outcome of a presidential election. Although the public and researchers tend to focus on the immediate impact of winning a battleground state on the current contest, the outcome of a following election may also be affected. In this paper, I investigate the effect of winning a state on the outcome of the next election, using a regression discontinuity (RD) design. The results of my RD analyses indicate that winning a state increases the party’s vote share in the next election. I also find evidence of a positive spillover effect of winning a state in a presidential election on later House of Representatives elections.