That map is positively glowering crimson at us. One might conclude, naively, that whoever runs for the Republican party next time around is going to waltz home.
Of course the instant response from the Left-wing consensus, convinced that Biden would vanquish Trump in 2024, goes something like “land doesn’t get to vote, people do”. And it’s true, there aren’t all that many people in Flyover Country. That’s why the Republicans don’t romp home every election. The big population concentrations are on the coasts where being a Democrat is a socially acceptable perversion.
So much is well known: but in fact, in a presidential election, it’s not quite true that people vote and the land doesn’t.
Reds under the beds?
Some people get to vote without knowing about it. Some voters even vote after death
Hillary won the popular vote twice – in 2008 versus BO for the dem nomination and in 2016 versus the Donald for pres.
So yes.
Madison Wisconsin
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
Atlanta Georgia
Maricopa County Arizona
Las Vegas Nevada
Forget about the rest of the country. These 5 are where elections are “won” and lost.
Vote early and often, Diogenes?
And Democrats also vote late. As in the late Mr John Smith.
This also applies a bit in the UK. Labour has a load of seats in Liverpool and London with 60-75% of the vote. The top 10 safest seats are all Labour.
Then again, without the assurance that the big states couldn’t overwhelm the smaller ones, why would any state have joined the Republic in the first place.
The electoral college is a fudge. It acts as a potential bulwark against tyranny (remember in 2016 when Hillary tried to influence the Electoral College to vote in her favour and ended up with the opposite result?), but also serves to balance out the disparity in population across the states.
This arguably gives the average Rhode Island voter greater electoral weight than an equivalent voter in New York or California.
As BoM4 says, same applies in inner city Labour seats which have been Labour majorities since forever.
‘… “land doesn’t get to vote, people do”. And it’s true, there aren’t all that many people in Flyover Country. That’s why the Republicans don’t romp home every election. The big population concentrations are on the coasts where being a Democrat is a socially acceptable perversion.“
Which is why the Electoral College – Presidential election is not won by simple majority, but by Electoral College votes which smooths out population density bias. That’s why the Dems want rid of the Electoral College and rig the voting with their preference for easy to rig postal ballots.
It’s true that Hills got 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016, but there were 4 million votes for a Libertarian candidate. If you scrapped the Electoral College (unlikely, because you’d need to get a lot of small states to agree) and went instead for direct Presidential elections (and don’t want them decided by which third party candidate(s) decide to run), then you either need a transferable vote system (too complex for USians) or a second round run-off between the top two if no candidate gains a plurality (à la française). In either case, Trump would still have won.
BTW Nebraska and Maine allocate EC votes proportionally, but they’re both relative tiddlers.
Chris. In 2016 the Republican plus Libertarian vote was a smidge higher than the Democratic plus the Green vote.