Here are the states that have been the most likely to deliver the presidency

In every presidential election, there’s one state that puts the victor over the top.

Some years, that state doesn’t actually matter much. In 1984, for example, Ronald Reagan won reelection so overwhelmingly that he could have lost any number of states and still beaten Walter Mondale handily. It’s not that Reagan had to win, say, Kansas to earn a second term. But there was nonetheless a state that served as the tipping point from loss to win. That year, the state was Michigan. Reagan won Michigan by 19 points, but, when ordered from strongest to weakest, Michigan was the point at which Reagan went from 263 to 283 electoral votes — and from a one- to a two-term president. In other words, Reagan won 32 states by a wider margin than Michigan, states worth 263 electoral votes. It was that 19-point Michigan win that put him past 270. But instead of pursuing that entertaining wonkiness, it’s more interesting to consider how likely states have been to be those tipping points over time. How often has each of the 50 states and D.C. that award electoral votes been the one to hand a candidate the presidency on this measure (ignoring, again, electoral college weirdness or the Maine/Nebraska one-offs)?