Did the concept of "swing states" always exist?

[twenty42]

Did the idea of "swing states," and for that matter "lean/likely/safe" states, always dominate presidential elections, or did this language come to popularity with the 2000 election?

I'm an avid reader of old newspapers, especially old election coverage. I notice that before 2000 there was considerably less talk about states and which ones were important, and electoral map projections weren't printed until very late into the election season. I'd think with the nature of our electoral system that state polling and projections would've always been super-important, but the news of the old days really didn't seem to cover it too much. Were presidential elections just a lot more national back then?

[Vosem]

It does seem like during the Cold War, there were significantly more states that could flip in one direction or another, so "swing states" weren't so important as a concept. The last time there was a single coherent set of swing states which decided elections that were important for a while was in the post-Civil War period, when you had roughly the same set of swing states deciding close elections from 1868-1916 (and literally the same set 1876-1888). Wonder if they had a different term for places that flipped a lot, like Indiana and New York.

[Kodak]

It does seem like during the Cold War, there were significantly more states that could flip in one direction or another, so "swing states" weren't so important as a concept. The last time there was a single coherent set of swing states which decided elections that were important for a while was in the post-Civil War period, when you had roughly the same set of swing states deciding close elections from 1868-1916 (and literally the same set 1876-1888). Wonder if they had a different term for places that flipped a lot, like Indiana and New York.

The term "bellwether state" is similar in meaning and much older.