United States state in the context of "Freedom of movement under United States law"

In United States politics, a swing state (also known as battleground state, toss-up state, or purple state) is any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election, most often referring to presidential elections, by a swing in votes. These states are usually targeted by both major-party campaigns, especially in competitive elections. Meanwhile, the states that regularly lean to a single party are known as "safe states" (or more specifically as "red states" and "blue states" depending on the partisan leaning), as it is generally assumed that one candidate has a base of support from which a sufficient share of the electorate can be drawn without significant investment or effort by the campaign. In the 2024 United States presidential election, seven states were widely considered to be the crucial swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Due to the winner-take-all method that most states use to determine their presidential electors, candidates often campaign only in competitive states, which is why a select group of states frequently receives a majority of the advertisements and candidate visits. The battlegrounds may change in certain election cycles and may be reflected in overall polling, demographics, and the ideological appeal of the nominees.

The Cook Partisan Voting Index, abbreviated PVI or CPVI, is a measurement of the partisanship of a U.S. congressional district or U.S. state. This partisanship is indicated as lean towards either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, compared to the nation as a whole, based on how that district or state voted in the previous two presidential elections.

Texas v. White, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700 (1869), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the U.S. in 1869. The case's notable political dispute involved a claim by the Reconstruction era government of Texas that U.S. bonds owned by Texas since 1850 had been illegally sold by the Confederate state legislature during the American Civil War. The state filed suit in the U.S. Supreme Court, given that, under the Constitution, that institution has original jurisdiction on certain cases in which a state is a party.

In accepting original jurisdiction, the court ruled that, legally speaking, Texas was and remained a state of the United States ever since it first joined the Union in 1845, despite it later purporting to join the Confederate States of America and despite it being under military rule at the time of the decision in the case. In deciding the merits of the bond issue, the court further held that the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were "absolutely null". The purported bond sale during the civil war was thus void and the reconstructed Texas remained the legal owner.