Well, Vox Media has some news for us, guys. Donald Trump won the 2016 election because he got the 270 votes needed in the Electoral College, despite winning the popular vote. Or as they put it, “Trump won the 2016 presidential election only because of the Electoral College.”
Well… isn’t that how EVERY president wins elections? #Geniuses #TheyAreSmarterThanAllOfUs https://t.co/R7Cj6mvZxk
— Larry O’Connor (@LarryOConnor) July 17, 2018
In other words, in this way every candidate won the presidential election. There’s the voxsplaining, which is equally irritating, and then there’s just the buckshot in the face. Yes, Trump won the Electoral College, so that’s why he’s president, right? Yes, you could talk about a “no sh**, Sherlock” moment. After the 2016 election, Voice and other liberal publications started attacking the Electoral College, promoting historical illiteracy and other nonsense that has thankfully died out because, you know, life goes on and we all have more critical things in life to deal with than listening to educated and patronizing academics from Hillaryville complain that this institution is evil. It’s not. In fact, it allowed us to abolish slavery—the presidential election of 1860 was crucial—but that’s been covered.
To be clear: Trump won the 2016 presidential election only because of the Electoral College. https://t.co/0Eiri1qrrp
— Vox (@voxdotcom) July 16, 2018
Explanation: Trump was able to win the election despite losing the popular vote because he won narrow victories in key swing states. The Electoral College worked in his favor because it places more weight in swing states and supports smaller states. https://t.co/YVrbEBZJbh
— Vox (@voxdotcom) July 17, 2018
Well, let’s get started listen to this for a second (Again):
“The Democrats lost an election that, quite frankly, they should have won because the Electoral College is much more favorable to the Democrats, as you know, than it is to the Republicans,” Trump said at a news conference with Putin.
To be clear, Trump won the 2016 presidential election only because the Electoral College was stacked in his favor. He lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by nearly 2.9 million votes—the largest margin ever for a losing candidate—but won the Electoral College by 74 votes. And Democrats have lost two of the last five presidential elections because of the Electoral College. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore won half a million more votes than George W. Bush nationwide but lost the presidency, handing Bush Florida by just 537 votes.
There’s a reason Trump claims the Electoral College favors Democrats over Republicans: Republicans argue that because states considered “safely Democratic” are larger than states with powerful Republican leanings, they have more Electoral College votes to begin with.
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There are several reasons why this system is unfair to either Democrats or Republicans.
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Votes in key swing states also carry more weight.
[…]
This is how Trump was elected: he suffered a drastic defeat in the popular vote, but managed to win the election because he won narrow victories in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Well, I would also like to remind people that we have only five elections were heldIn which the winner of the presidential race won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote in our entire history. Only five times in 242 years, and yet we are still one nation. Second, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are not really swing states. Until the 2016 election, these states had not voted Republican for almost 30 years. The last time Pennsylvania or Michigan voted Republican was 1988; Wisconsin in 1984. So what it boils down to is that California, America’s most populous and deep blue bastion, gave Clinton the popular vote advantage. Republicans in that state, knowing their vote would make no difference, probably stayed home, even though it would have added to Trump’s popular vote column, perhaps closer. We’ll never know. And it’s not that the voices of those California Democrats weren’t heard. This is the state with the most electoral votes, all of which went to Hillary Clinton.
The Electoral College favors the Democrats, and people who think otherwise don’t follow trends. Florida is going to go blue. Virginia is also headed that way. To the delight of liberals, Trump can’t be president forever, and as we saw with Obama’s coalition, transferability to someone else from the same party isn’t always a given. Hillary Clinton learned this the challenging way. Before 2016, Democrats could easily win 242 electoral votes, with the left-leaning coast and the liberal Northeast. Add to that Florida’s vote total, and they have 271. That’s why some on the right are calling for a national popular vote compact that would guarantee a state’s electoral votes to whichever state wins the popular vote. But first, enough states that could get 270 electoral votes under the compact would have to sign on. So far, only 11 states (165 votes) have signed on, but it is gaining popularity in Republican states.
It expands the field, it makes sure that every voter, even those in deep blue states like New York and California, will go out to vote because they can have a say in it. Democrats in the Deep South may feel the same way. It gets them out of the bunker and allows candidates to run campaigns that align with their party, because there are no more swing states. Democrats can run a crazy leftist. Republicans can run a true conservative or a right-wing populist like Donald Trump.
I’m still not sure about this idea. A good point that these NPV advocates make is that swing-state campaigns make for bad national policy. An example is the education policy No Child Left Behind. It may work in some places, but it doesn’t work everywhere, right? Like any program, but it did get Volvo-driving soccer moms in Hamilton County, Ohio, which won it the Buckeye State for Bush.
It’s worth having a debate, but not through that prism. The left’s criticism is based on sour grapes and an inability to accept that Hillary Clinton, a terrible candidate, lost to Trump. My side lost, so we have to change everything, that’s childish. And just because your side lost doesn’t mean the nation is in danger. Grow up, shut up, and get out of the way. This is directed at you, Democrats.
