Photo: AFP / Kamil Krzaczynski
By Antoinette Radford and Zachary B. Wolf, CNN
Seven states are expected to be key to electing the next president of the United States: Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
So what is a battleground state, and why is their vote so important?
There are 538 Electoral College votes split among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each state gets at least three votes, depending on the size of their congressional delegation.
Congressional seats are assigned to each state based on their population. So, the smallest states get three electoral college votes (they have two senators and one member of Congress). Washington, DC, also gets three. The most populous states get a lot more: California gets 54 electoral votes (it has two senators and 52 congressional districts), Texas has 40, Florida has 30, New York has 28 and so on.
In almost all states, the winning candidate takes all electoral votes. Whichever candidate gets 270 or more electoral votes becomes president.
Some states are historically blue (where Democrats dominate) or red (where Republicans dominate). The battleground states are those where voters do not tend to consistently vote for the same party, but battleground states can change from election to election.
The bigger battleground states such as Pennsylvania, have more congressional seats, and are therefore extra important for a candidate's road to 270. And if a candidate wins three or more battleground states, they are more likely to win the election.
That's why the seven battleground states could determine who becomes president.
-CNN
