250k Votes

It was even fewer votes last election; I want say it was around 44,000 votes in 2020. The electoral college is definitely a problem but wasn’t the problem this election.

 

That is not really accurate. Trump on needed one of the blue walls states to win. Trump won PA by 2.1% which works out to about 150k votes. That is a solid win in a swing state. Trump won more decisively in GA, NC, and AZ, which is what he needed to get to 270.

 

you are right in this. Last time it was much more narrow and all that i heard was popular vote. This time trump won the popular vote by more than 4,000,000 and 310+ electoral after Arizona is done counting. Then you can go down the list on the autopsy and see trump performed 10+ better in NY, NJ and Cali than 2020. So I will disagree that the issue is with the voting system and more in the misinterpretation of preliminary information of what people would vote for or against.

 

No, it's accurate. Trump won WI, MI and PA by about 250k votes combined.

 

It did not decide the election though. Any one of the blue wall states would have put Trump over 270. So saying 250k votes decided the election is not accurate. You can’t say 150k votes decided the election in PA because Trump also won WI and MI.

 

I think it holds. The point is that 250,000 votes in the right 3 states decided the election from 3 states that have 30M people living in them. As much of a "wipeout" that this election was our elections are currently so close that minor swings in preference have massively outsize impact.

I think the shortcoming of the electoral college is that it created a situation that the candidates simply campaigned in about 7 states.. and could have just campaigned in 3.

 

What's the alternative?

 

If you are going to look at it through a three state prism, you have to pick the three states that put him over the top. In this case, GA, NC, and PA would be the three swing states that gets him to 270. He won those by a combined 450k votes. WI and MI could have gone to Harris and it would not have made a difference. There are a bunch of other scenarios, like AZ, MI, and GA which gets Trump to 277 and a difference of 380k votes.

The idea of those 250k votes in those states deciding the election does not hold because you could have Trump winning all those states but it would still take Harris winning AZ, NV, NC, and GA to get over 270. In that case, 550k votes would have decided the election.

 

Trump only needed one blue wall state to get over 270 and the other two did not make a difference at that point.

 

It's time for a Constitutional amendment to eliminate the EC. It's an anachronism that's actually never operated as the founders it's intended and completely distorts the electoral process. Under the the EC as envisioned by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #68 state legislatures would select the electors who use their independent judgment to elect the president. The situation would actually be worse than it is now if the EC operated under those in that manner since gerrymandered legislation would select party hacks who vote the candidate of their party regardless of the popular vote.

That being said and although his second administration will be disastrous, I'm actually glad that Trump received a majority albeit a bare majority this time since his recent election was an actual reflection of the will of electorate rather than the result of an undemocratic quirk in the Constitution as was his first election. As I previously stated in numerous posts Trump's victory was attributable almost entirely to the economy, social issues and even immigration were secondary. Although the latter two issues were important to members of the Cult of the Donald so was the economy and to the swing voters actually responsible for Trump's election, it was "the economy stupid" to quote James Carville. For all intents and purposes no Democrat could have beaten Trump although the nominee of the party would have had a much better chance if Biden had announced last year that he wouldn't be running for a second term and the party nominated a moderate candidate from a swing state through the primary process. Biden's late withdrawal pretty much guaranteed a defeat even if the party selected a nominee through an open convention rather than anointing Harris.

 

I wasn't clear. Yes, with the Electoral College, not that many votes in a key state or two can swing an entire election. But if you went by popular vote ... same thing.
It seems inevitable.

 

I would love to see a Covid WFH analysis and how technolgy has impacted voter residence.

How many Dems moved to swing states? How many Pubs moved to swing states?

What is the legacy of Covid and the technology impact?

 

I do not think it is since you would need a constitutional Amendment to do it. I do not think the current state law switch up effort would pass Constitutional muster at the SCOTUS.

 

I think COVID had a much larger impact on this election than we realize right now. I think that will come out over the next year or so.

 

My hypothesis is there was a spike in personal incentive for right leaning voter to leave a left leaning state.

Could you get 1m voters to migrate to swing states? Probably not at one time but easily can happen in a 4-5 year period.

Exporting voters through incentives is technically illegal, but it’s impossible to adjudicate. Republicans are smart enough to do in stealth.

 

Not sure what we are arguing. If Harris held WI. MI, PA she wins with 270. The total of those 3 were 250k. That was the likeliest difference. Sure Harris could have won other states instead but those were the closest.

 

I’m not sure that made a difference. Harris lost ground everywhere to Biden…not in pockets.

 

I do suspect gender was a significant factor — both the candidate and the voters who showed up.

 

I’m sorry, I’m still not being clear. I mean that it’s inevitable that a relatively few votes can swing an entire election. Whether the EC method or popular vote. We’re not moving away from the EC