How successful are the states to choose the President? Bellwether States to forecast election.

Results in the so-called «Bellwether States» are another method of forecasting presidential elections. This term is used to describe the administrative-territorial units of a country that serve as an indicator of the likely outcome of the entire electoral race.

Unlike other methods, it is assumed that «Bellwether» does not imply any significant impact on the election procedure and results in neighboring states. Rather it is believed that the region in issue is limited to its own boundaries and serves only as a small-scale representation of the national attitude.

There are several approaches of defining the American Bellwether. Many experts would like to determine which state has elected a future president the most times since its initial vote. Others, however, think that a certain point in time, like 1896, ought to be chosen.

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Both approaches for identifying «Bellwether States» were taken into consideration in this research project after a thorough analysis of every election campaign in the United States since 1789:

The first one points out New-Mexico, Illinois and Ohio.

The issue with th is method is that it’s hard to claim that the results are objective because the aforementioned states started voting at different points in time after their joining the U.S.

The second one places Ohio, Illinois and Nevada (starting point – the 1896 election).

This method’s drawback is that, because the concrete date is subjective, there is no starting point. The bottom line is that the end result might differ significantly based on the author’s personal opinions about the «turning point» in American history.

As of early November 2024, Ohio was leaning toward electing the Republican, Illinois and New-Mexico were leaning toward electing the Democrat, and Nevada was still a battleground for both candidates. Therefore, Kamala Harris was expected to be the next president of the United States of America. The result was the opposite.

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This was related to the fact that the forecasting method does not account for things like the quantitative changes in the country’s population, its ethnic, religious and other composition and the acquisition of voting rights for specific socioeconomic groups. The lack of additional factors creates a conundrum because a state’s voting history is the only factor taken into consideration. In this sense, «Bellwether States» as a forecasting tool cannot be acknowledged as relevant.

February 20, 2025

Kotenko Matvey

BA in Regional Studies