Drawing on internal campaign records and novel data sources, Battleground identifies the Electoral College strategies for every major presidential campaign in the modern era, assesses how well they executed their plans, and illuminates what difference their state-by-state allocation of candidate visits and television spending made on election day. From Eisenhower to Trump, the book shows how battleground states have been selected and contested, and why campaign strategies are important for shaping Electoral College outcomes. Battleground provides readers with a sophisticated yet straightforward look at how (and how much) presidential campaigns affect the selection of the most powerful person in the world.