Vox has a piece that advances that view….
The system actually helps Republicans upset the Democrats urban advantage ….
Again?
Democrats CANNOT win the Presidency without getting votes from purple swing state voters including some white non college ones….
In 2016, Donald Trump won the presidency despite receiving nearly 3 million fewer votesthan Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. In 2000, George W. Bush pulled off a similar trick. According to a new study, these are not flukes. They are the kind of results we should expect from the Electoral College.
The study, by three economics researchers at the University of Texas, quantifies just how often the Electoral College will produce an “inversion” — that is, an election where one candidate wins the popular vote but the other walks away with the presidency. The numbers are simply astonishing.
In modern elections where one party prevails by just 2 points in the two-party popular vote, “inversions are expected in more than 30% of elections.” That number rises to 40 percent in elections with a 1 percentage-point margin.
Republicans, moreover, are far more likely to benefit from an inversion than Democrats. “In the modern period,” the study suggests, “Republicans should be expected to win 65% of Presidential contests in which they narrowly lose the popular vote.”
This Republican advantage can shift elections where the Democrat was a fairly clear winner in the popular vote. “A 3.0 point margin favoring the Democrat,” the study concludes, “is associated with a 16% inversion probability.” In other words, Republicans will win nearly one in six presidential races where they lose the popular vote by 3 points….
Saying that GWB “pulled off a similar trick” is a pretty incomplete thought from whomever wrote it. He was far, far, far closer in the popular vote than Trump was.
Not that it matters in the long run. Presidential campaigns are designed to win based on the rules, just like football teams put together game plans to score the most points, not necessarily gain the most yards.
Sanders can’t win…
Warren is STILL in second….
Trump would beat her for sure…
The piece is probably too strident…
But the underlying point I’ve carried here….
A straight out progressive Dem run won’t do it…
Biden could have written the piece…
It’s his plan
“Trump would beat her for sure” but yet you think she is the best choice as VP.
Something doesn’t add up there. If you believe that, shouldn’t Biden be able to find someone who doesn’t harm him politically?
Sure it does….
Biden against Trump right now IS winner for Dem’s i stand by my view that Warren would be good for American consumers
Biden could have written the piece?
Don’t give him any ideas! He might try to pretend that he did.
If only 60,000 votes had flipped in Ohio in 2004 we’d be rid of the antiquated Electoral College now.
I’m afraid both parties being screwed by “the rules” is the only thing that will cause it to change.
I don’t think so. Jack should correct me if I am wrong with the details, but the electoral system is part of our constitution. So something like 2/3 of the states would need to approve this change and trying to get approval in states like Idaho and New Hampshire which benefits greatly from current system is dead on arrival.
Maybe it would still be tough to change even if there were a recent election where Republicans won the popular vote while losing the Electoral College.
But right now one party is firmly against change because the ststus who has clearly benefited them.
In 2000 and 2004, where it looked like the result could be very close (which was not as expected in 2016), it was considered very possible that the split could go either way.
Yes, it would require 2/3 of state legislatures voting to amend the Constitution, It would probably pass in maybe a third of them.
If we had a national popular vote, there would be virtually no campaigning beyond the largest 5 or 6 states,
How many states are competitive now?
If we elected via popular vote candidates would still target tgecsame demographics–urban, suburban, rural. Maybe candidates would feel free to target the urban vote in states that aren’t OH and FL. And in small towns that aren’t in swing states.
Good point.
Most presidential candidate confine their personal campaigning to a few swing states.
The rest see the candidates on media.
What strategy would have it where a candidate would go to a small town anywhere?
There aren’t as many people in small towns.
Both sides would campaign in the NYC metro area, the LA area, near large cities in Texas, and not a whole lot of places beyond that.
The amount of actual “stump speeches” as we have known them by nominees would probably fall off by about 75%.
The big speeches in front of big crowds would be designed to be covered by live television/internet, etc, and would be about the show business aspect.
In essence, there would be mini-conventions, after the actual conventions, and not much else.
And imagine the fun of a national re-count.
Candidates for statewide offices that are decided by popular vote often campaign in every county. Not just the mostbpopulous ones. I get why Republicans are scared of getting rid of the Electoral College thpugh. Tbey have come in second in 5 of the last 6 elections in tjat regard.
Of course if a atate like TX were to flip this whole argument would be moot
Republicans would be hard pressed to win the EC too.
Sorry for the typos. This reply format us tough when you are typing on a tablet.
I meant Republicans have come in 2nd in the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 elections.
Some people here (not necessarily me) are old enough to remember when Democrats came in second in 5 out of 6 elections, with one narrow win and at least 4 of the 5 losses via landslide.
All politics is local , remember?
70,000 votes in just a few states got us a snake oil entertainer salesman as President…
There would be profound differences between a statewide race and a Presidential race.
Presidential races are much much bigger.
Still, you see very little retail campaigning in places like California. Almost everything is done in tv ads.
Big states with HUGE populations that are solid Blue or Red aren’t gonna get candidates making stops like Iowa and NH….
The large urban or their suburban areas are the only places they will go,
Wherever you can get the biggest crowd to show up at short notice for an arena rally where they can chant “lock her/him up” for the cable news cameras.
Sounds good to me.
They would only go where you can get the biggest possible crowd in the shortest amount of time. It’s common sense.
There would be very little in person campaigning in general though, Everything would be about fundraising and advertising on television
In theory, the concept of one American having an equal vote to everyone else in the country is a noble one, but in practice, this would lead to what people dislike most about politics becoming even worse.
The EC isn’t going anywhere….
The group sponsoring the popular vote won’t be able to get the required number of state’s in the end because they are RED and small…
Vermont? New Hampshire? Rhode Island? Hawai’i? Delaware? Maine? New Mexico?
Red states all?
Most….
Stop being picky…
You KNOW what I’m getting at….
It’s not most.
Define a “small” state and it is at least as likely to be very competitive or heavily Democrat than it is to be heavily Republican.
Besides CG’s arguments to keep the antiquated EC other Republicans have defended it using Trump’s line that it is actually easier to win the popular vote and if Trump were going for that he would have campaigned in CA and NU and gotten enough votes to win the nation wide popular vote.
To which my reply is–OK, let’s give it a try then and let he who wins the most votes be the victor.
Of course their answer is..”no, that wouldn’t be ‘fair’–but we could still win that way easy”–uh huh
It wouldn’t have been easier for Trump to win the popular vote. It might very well have been easier for someone like Romney though if he had been able to focus on suburban areas in California, New York, Illinois, etc.
It’s possible. I know in 2012 I thought the vote difference between Obama and Romney would be much smaller and that Mitt could possibly win the popular vote while losing the EC.
And on Ekection Night before the bulk of west coast votes were in Romney was ahead which caused his supporter Donald Trump to rip on rhe Electoral College as unfair.
Definitely true on the last part, and also the next day Rush Limbaugh ranted on his show about how horrible Mitt Romney was and how he wasn’t able to get conservatives to turn out because he had so many fewer votes than John McCain even. He never let go of that theme after either all the years later. The narrative with him continued.
There were still millions of votes to be counted though, for both candidates when El Rushbo saw the figures. Romney wound up with many more total votes than McCain received.
And while it won’t happen it’s clear that if Trump were to lose the Electoral College but win the popular vote he would be back on the “abolish the EC” bandwagon. As would the GOP.
Of course.
The only reason the Republicans are such guardians of the EC is that it has elected two Republicans who otherwise would have lost.
If the EC had elected “Presidents” Al Gore and Hillary Clinton after they had lost the popular vote, besides Sean Hannity ,the Fox News commentariat, and Rush Limbaugh likely having emotional breakdowns,there would have been Republican efforts to get rid of the EC
And the Democrats?They would have been making the same arguments that the Republicans are making today.
And the Constitution would still be the Constitution.