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I think this shows the wisdom of the founders when they came up with the electoral college. The winner has to have broad support across the nation rather than in just a few key states.
I don't think the nation would have lasted as long as did otherwise. Many states would have tried to leave the Union because they would have felt disenfranchised at one time or another (sort of the way Britain is now leaving the EU). Hell, even as a New Yorker, I would want New York to leave the Union if California had anymore power in this country then she already has.
I don't think 63 percent of the country lived in urban areas when the Founding Fathers came up with this outmoded system.
Broad support across a state with 1,000 people doesn't really matter.
People are people and more people who live in this country voted for Hillary Clinton than for Trump. Fact.
No candidate was able to get over 50% of the vote. Fact.
And yet, Clinton's vote has set records. Fact.
Twenty-five percent of the country voted for Trump. Fact.
Trump has no mandate and there will be pushback for every idiotic decision he tweets. Fact.
And it doesn't matter where these US citizens live. Fewer wanted Trump even though we are stuck with him.
"...The latest election totals showed that Mrs Clinton, who lost to outsider Mr Trump last month, has received more votes than Mr Obama did in his 2012 victory, according to data from the National Archives and a running total by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report..."
She has overtaken Mr Trump by nearly 2.8 million votes (48% to Mr Trump's 46%)..Mrs Clinton's lead is the largest of the five times when a US presidential candidate won the popular vote but failed to win the election..."
I don't understand such reasoning. Why pick out two, and only two, states that went for Ms. Clinton? Why aren't you saying "don't count Texas and Alabama" for Mr. Trump?
In every presidential election the popular vote is reached via counting all states, with no subtraction. In 2012 President Obama won the popular vote by 5 million votes. I don't recall people saying "Ah, but if you subtract California (3 million votes) and New York (2 million votes) then it was very close for Mr. Romney!"
To use the young people's vernacular, 'it is what it is'. Mr. Trump lost the popular vote, but, more importantly, he won the electoral vote. I know that it ruffles his feathers that he did not win the popular vote, but his supporters should simply accept that fact and move on.
The point is that the Democrats are only really popular in a few places. And they should try to broaden their appeal.
The only big state that actually flips preference is Florida. Rs are helpless without Texas, Ds without New York and Ohio is the big bellwether. All the others have been locked into their voting preferences since 1988. The interesting hitch will be in 2024 when they reapportion electoral votes and demographics change after another decade of migration, deaths, people coming of voting age. We also saw some major splits like Kander being competitive in the Missouri Senate race while Trump romped and Trump eeking out wins in states where the R Senate candidate swept. It will be hard to find two less popular Presidential candidates and duplicate the popular/electoral vote split we saw in this cycle.
The interesting thing about NY and Ca are that they have a lot of residents moving to other states for affordability, retirement or weather. So do they become less Dem or do the states those folks choose become more Dem?
This is an interesting analysis. However, I disagree with you about Ohio, because it appears that this state has transformed from a purple state to a red state. In 2012, Obama won Ohio by 2.98% (compared to Obama's 3.86% popular vote victory). Four years later, Trump won the state by 8.13% (as Clinton was winning the popular vote by 2.09%). What is happening recently in Ohio is similar to what happened to Missouri 15-20 years ago. Specifically, Missouri was once the quintessential swing state, but it became much more Republican than the nation as a whole beginning with the 2000 election.
In 2020, it appears that the top-tier swing states will be Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Florida was very close in both 2012 (when Obama won it by 0.88%) & 2016 (when Trump prevailed by 1.20%). The other three states that I mentioned were once part of the "blue wall" but have been trending rapidly to the GOP (in large part due to the fact that all three states have a high number of white working class voters while having a smaller-than-average Latino population).
Continuing with this analysis, I believe that the second-tier of the swing states will be North Carolina (which is a bit more Republican than the nation as a whole), Arizona (a historically Republican state that is trending Democratic), Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Nevada. (While Clinton won the last four states mentioned, Trump made significant gains in all four places.)
The bottom-tier swing states will most likely be Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, and Ohio. While Texas and Georgia are trending Democratic (like Arizona), they posses many elements of Southern culture (which is in contrast to Arizona), and thus will be heavy lifts for any Democratic candidate in the foreseeable future. Virginia and Colorado continue their move leftward, and thus I would not expect a Republican to carry those states barring a landslide GOP victory. I discussed Ohio earlier, and Iowa is (IMO) undergoing a similar transformation (from purple to red).
Wow - if you do not count CA and NY, Trump was ahead by 3 million in popular vote. Meanwhile, those two states put HRC ahead by 2.8 million! I guess the electoral college really does its job.
LOL LOL LOL! So that popular vote REALLY bothers you, does it? To the point that you're down to not counting some states at all, so you end up with the popular vote count you want?
We could do it another way, too, and NOT COUNT the states that Trump won decisively. How's that for counting the popular vote? HAHAHAHAHA! That is too funny.
So the take-away is that votes in California and New York don't count?
I'm sure that's how it looks to someone in coastal CA or NYC. The other 99% of the country doesn't want the presidency decided by New York City and sanctuary cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco.
This is an interesting analysis. However, I disagree with you about Ohio, because it appears that this state has transformed from a purple state to a red state. In 2012, Obama won Ohio by 2.98% (compared to Obama's 3.86% popular vote victory). Four years later, Trump won the state by 8.13% (as Clinton was winning the popular vote by 2.09%). What is happening recently in Ohio is similar to what happened to Missouri 15-20 years ago. Specifically, Missouri was once the quintessential swing state, but it became much more Republican than the nation as a whole beginning with the 2000 election.
In 2020, it appears that the top-tier swing states will be Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Florida was very close in both 2012 (when Obama won it by 0.88%) & 2016 (when Trump prevailed by 1.20%). The other three states that I mentioned were once part of the "blue wall" but have been trending rapidly to the GOP (in large part due to the fact that all three states have a high number of white working class voters while having a smaller-than-average Latino population).
Continuing with this analysis, I believe that the second-tier of the swing states will be North Carolina (which is a bit more Republican than the nation as a whole), Arizona (a historically Republican state that is trending Democratic), Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Nevada. (While Clinton won the last four states mentioned, Trump made significant gains in all four places.)
The bottom-tier swing states will most likely be Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, and Ohio. While Texas and Georgia are trending Democratic (like Arizona), they posses many elements of Southern culture (which is in contrast to Arizona), and thus will be heavy lifts for any Democratic candidate in the foreseeable future. Virginia and Colorado continue their move leftward, and thus I would not expect a Republican to carry those states barring a landslide GOP victory. I discussed Ohio earlier, and Iowa is (IMO) undergoing a similar transformation (from purple to red).
Good analysis, Dole.
I think it's still a cycle or two early to count Georgia, and especially Texas as a battleground. As you alluded to, the whites in those states vote like Southerners, meaning that there's more of a racial solidarity of the white vote than in the country as a whole, with comparatively little variance between the white and white non-college vote. That combined with questionable minority turnout are likely to keep both states as very heavy lifts for the Democrats until such time as demographics change lowers the white vote a little more.
I'm not certain that Ohio is totally gone for the Democrats, but it's certainly an R lean rather than a true tossup, and I'd rate NC as an R lean as well.
No, not at all. They do count. Whomever wins those states is allocated those electoral votes. Those states count but do not have the ability to decide the election by themselves (I am from NY)..
Well yes this year but this year was not the norm, their is a lot of power in those two states.
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