America's Lopsided Campaign Trail
Some Americans saw dozens of campaign events in their cities, while others didn't see any at all. Here's a map of all 865 campaign events.
The American campaign trail is heavily focused on Swing States. That symptom of the Electoral College is no secret. In 2024, seven swing states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada) saw all the attention, with stops in other states being rare. A few of these seven states have been swing states for decades, while others have only recently gotten competitive. So I took a look at the data provided by FairVote and mapped all 865 campaign events of the past three presidential cycles.
1. Mapping All 865 Campaign Stops
Note: All data comes from FairVote.org and, while accurate, it might not be perfect.
The map above shows all campaign stops by presidential and/or vice-presidential candidates from 2016 to 2024. A larger bubble means more campaign stops in that area. It once more becomes evident that the political campaign circus is heavily concentrated on swing states. The highest density and volume on the map can be found in the states that were swing states across all three cycles: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and North Carolina. Naturally, the population centers in these states set the records: Philadelphia (23), Las Vegas (22), and Detroit (21) saw the most campaign stops from 2016 to 2024. But in these senior swing states, campaign events also stretched to other communities outside the population centers. Almost every town and city in Pennsylvania had at least one visit by a candidate from the presidential ticket. The small swing city of Erie (part of Erie County, a bellwether for Pennsylvania) stacks up nine total campaign stops.
Other states with a decent, but slightly lower, number of campaign events are swing states that have either lost their battleground status or gained it between 2016 and 2024. You can find many dots in Florida, like in Miami, but a large majority of these events took place in 2016 and 2020, when the state was still competitive before it drifted to Republicans. The same can be said about Ohio and Iowa, states that only stand out on the map due to their importance in the 2016 and 2020 elections. On the other side, Georgia didn’t see widespread campaign events until 2020 and 2024, when it became a swing state.
What about population centers? The popular vote is decided by the people, and most people live in larger states, such as California, Texas, or Florida. Apart from Florida, large states saw very little attention, though I suspect that Texas could soon become the target of presidential campaigns, as the state’s vote margins have been narrowing over the past decades.
Looking at 2016 to 2024, there is a clear winner among the 50 states when it comes to campaign events: Pennsylvania (147 campaign events) leads North Carolina (106) and Florida (98). Pennsylvania’s lead is unsurprising, as it has been the biggest electoral prize among the closest swing states. Florida, with its 30 electoral votes, has an even larger population, but suffers from no longer being a swing state.
2. New Hampshire Reigns Supreme: Campaign Visits Per One Million Residents
Raw population can distort the picture. It’s only natural that the nine million registered voters in Pennsylvania require more campaign events than the two million registered voters in Nevada. Therefore, a more comparable way to analyze the past campaign events is to examine which state saw the most campaign events relative to its population.
A quick note: Washington, D.C. is not on this map, but with its 20 campaign events per one million residents, it would quite easily take the crown. (Though most of these are a result of the 2016 election)
Accounting for population differences, the attention shifts to smaller swing states. While Pennsylvania remains a strong third place with 11.26 campaign visits per one million residents, it’s overtaken by Nevada (11.88 visits per million, 6 Electoral Votes) and New Hampshire (16.96, 4 EVs).
Despite delivering the most Electoral Votes, most of the largest population centers are far away from this kind of electoral importance. California (0.30 visits per million, 54 EVs), Illinois (0.31, 19 EVs), Texas (0.41, 40 EVs), and New York (0.95, 28 EVs) all registered less than one campaign event per a million residents over the course of the past three presidential elections. Still, they are not the worst off.
16 states, colored grey on the map, didn’t see a presidential or vice presidential candidate in any of the past three races. These are mostly smaller and highly partisan states, such as Wyoming or Vermont. But also larger states with a softer partisan lean, like Montana, were neglected.
3. What Could Change in the Future?
The two presented maps would change drastically should the push to end the Electoral College be successful. Yes, California or Texas would get most attention, but that’s where the people live. On our 2nd map – the one showing events in proportion to population – we would likely converge towards a balanced picture. One, where every state sees approximately the same number of campaign events per capita.
Should the Electoral College survive, the uneven map will persist, although with some state-specific changes. As mentioned, Texas is becoming more competitive and could demand more attention, while Florida could sink into the depths of electoral unimportance. Alaska and Kansas, smaller states that didn’t register any campaign events as they were firmly Republican, could rise in importance as they have been drifting towards the Democrats.