Trump's electoral college advantage may be deepening. Do Democrats have a plan for that?

[applegrove]

Trump’s electoral college advantage may be deepening. Do Democrats have a plan for that?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and former vice president Joe Biden at the Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta on Nov. 20. (John Bazemore/AP)

By Greg Sargent, THE PLUM LINE, at the Washington post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/27/trumps-electoral-college-advantage-may-be-deepening-do-democrats-have-plan-that/?utm_source=reddit.com

"SNIP......

The big gubernatorial victories in Kentucky and Louisiana have unleashed optimism in the Democratic Party. They underscored the story we’ve seen again and again in the Trump era: Democratic gains in the suburbs and among college-educated whites are helping Democrats assemble a potent anti-Trump coalition, even in some of the reddest parts of the country.

But here’s the rub. Those same dynamics have real ramifications for Trump’s advantage in the electoral college. That’s because the states with the most-educated populations won’t be decisive in the electoral college, while the states with the less-educated populations will be crucial, particularly in the Rust Belt.

For instance, in Wisconsin, the percentage of eligible voters who are white and have college degrees is a low 27 percent. In Michigan and Pennsylvania, it’s 33 percent, according to Wasserman’s data. By contrast, in a dozen leading blue states, those voters average about 40 percent.

This means Democrats could run up huge margins in urban/suburban and cosmopolitan America, winning the popular vote by a greater margin than in 2016, while still losing in the electoral college. As Wasserman noted, the fact that Republicans are also improving in their areas suggests that Trump’s electoral college advantage — relative to the popular vote — may be deepening.


.....SNIP"

[torius]

1. There's no minimum residency time in Wisconsin

To vote in a Presidential election. Just sayin.’

[Grasswire2]

2. can't wait for the election to rid America of Trump

All it would take is several "botched" state tallies referred to SCOTUS for resolution, and voila. He's in.

The election is being rigged as we sit here, said Comey, Coates, Mueller, Wray. UNDER OATH.

We cannot risk waiting for the election.

MUST STOP HIM NOW.

[applegrove]

3. You will have to wait for the election. Senate Republicans are not going

to impeach. Better to prepare to knock on doors and the like. Better yet get forms from your local election office and sign up new voters. Stsnd outside the mall this xmas. It will be filled with 18 to 22 year olds who have not been registered to vote yet. Sign them up. (They are too young for credit cards so they still christmas shop at brick and motar stores). Follow all the rules. Hang out there every after school and weekend. Be involved.

[wnylib]

8. And hope you are not signing up Trump supporters.

Here in NY, the cities are the strongest Dem areas. Small towns and rural areas are Republican. But NY will go Dem in the election for sure.

We need new Dem voters in the Trump electoral states. Will have to search for them at high schools and college campuses.

I was in a very rural, red srea of NY on Friday afteroon and overheard a young woman say she was definitely voting blue this time because she just could not stand Trump. She has also been following the hearings. Hope that example holds true in Trump electoral states.

[Tanuki]

11. We also need to focus on voter registration and turnout in red-area immigrant communities.

This is what is happening in Tennessee, where I live:

https://www.tirrcvotes.org/news/our-powerful-first-year-together

"A year ago today, TIRRC Votes officially launched as a new political movement to build power for immigrant and refugee communities and build a pro-immigrant majority in Tennessee. Can you believe it’s only been a year?

Together, we’ve shown what’s possible when proven movement builders invest in electoral organizing. With your support, we’re building a new model for progressive, pro-immigrant political organizations in the Southeast.

Here’s a look at our powerful first year together:

We launched our movement last August 13 with more than 700 supporters 

In the 2018 elections, we reached nearly 170,000 voters statewide with a powerful team of 132 canvassers from nearly 20 countries. We expanded the electorate, turned out new and infrequent voters, and invested in the next generation of political leaders.

And, we defeated an anti-immigrant incumbent who had been voting to keep immigrant students out of college and elected a progressive, pro-immigrant champion to the seat. 

We fought back against a slate of anti-immigrant bills introduced in the General Assembly - and defeated every single one. 

We co-hosted the most-attended candidate event of the 2019 Nashville election cycle - a forum with more than 700 people;

We sat down with 2020 democratic candidates Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg to discuss our priorities for the next administration; and

And, we won big in the August 1st elections in Nashville with 20 of our 21 endorsed candidates winning their races or advancing to the runoff 


Now is the time to invest in TIRRC Votes and building a strong, pro-immigrant political movement in Tennessee. Together, we can transform our local communities and the South. '...(more)

[wnylib]

13. That"s great, as long as they"ve been here long

enough to become citizens and be eligible to vote.

[Tanuki]

16. Of course. Nobody is talking about cheating or getting anyone in trouble.

[LiberalFighter]

31. The Senate will not be doing the impeaching.

When those articles of impeachment are read in the Senate it will be on live tv and rebroadcasted over and over as well as covered by print media.

[moondust]

4. Electoral college sucks

for anybody that believes in true democracy, i.e. government that primarily serves a majority of the population. That includes me.

The best argument I've heard for having an electoral college is playing out now. It's called the Michael Bloomberg campaign. He apparently plans to ignore the early small states altogether and focus entirely on the big states where the great majority of Democratic voters are located. That may have been what the drafters of the Constitution were trying to avoid with the electoral college. I'm sure they knew that some self-serving politicians would simply ignore states with few votes, possibly leaving them under-represented and under-served.

Other possibilities may have included trade-offs with smaller slave states to get them on board and/or a general fear of a revolution of the masses similar to what had happened in France. EC electors might be able to prevent too much "populism" working to unseat the landowners (and take their stuff ).

[regnaD kciN]

5. It may, but we're going to be stuck with it for the foreseeable future...

...so we better learn to live with it.

[ck4829]

19. I'm not sure if that's the appropriate response to tyranny

[yellowdogintexas]

6. the electoral college was definitely a tradeoff

with the slave states. There is no may have about it. Having the Electors cast those votes allowed the slave states to have their 3/5 rule.

[Backseat Driver]

28. + without a shadow of a doubt. eom

[wnylib]

14. Electoral college doesn't matter in primaries.

[moondust]

23. True.

Seeing Bloomberg's plans to ignore the small states reminded me of the problems the drafters faced in creating their new representative government and why they ended up with an electoral college.

[wnylib]

29. I don"t see how the EC equalizes the states

since states with lower populations get fewer EC votes anyway. I don"t see a need for the EC at all. We are all one nation regardless of where we come from. It is a paternalistic system.

Without the EC, candidates would have to address all the people on the issues.

Imagine no red or blue states, just Americans. Might heal some divisions. It would give everyone a vote that would be heard. As it is now, blue voters are nullified in red states and vice versa.

[moondust]

32. It doesn't equalize them.

But I suspect it may have been an attempt by the drafters to TRY to give them a little more power and prevent them from being ignored by politicians. One of the challenges they faced in those days was to get settlers to leave the East and expand westward and stay there. They may have figured the EC would help incentivize that, similar to the Homestead Act of 1862. Of course there may have been other reasons.

Distributing the electoral vote evenly among each state’s residents suggests that individual votes from Wyoming carry 3.6 times more influence, or weight, than those from California.

[wnylib]

33. i think the main reason initially was to prevent

populism from taking over elections. Some founders feared the outcome of popular elections, so they believed it was necessary to choose electors to make wise decisions for the populace. People could choose from the community who to represent them in voting.

Dies not work out that way today. It is an archaic system thst does not prevent populism as we see right now. But Republicans argue in favor of keeping the EC to balance the powers.of the states, which is a false argument. The Senate and House do that.

[moondust]

34. Another consideration

in those days may have been that with very little media voters wouldn't know much about candidates and their proposals unless the candidates showed up in person and told them. That may also help explain the long campaign season where candidates had to make a lot of stops to connect with voters. That is obviously no longer the case.

I'd just as soon see maybe a 6-week campaign season like in Europe, repeal of Citizens United, and elimination of the EC. Much has changed in the past 230 years.

[wnylib]

35. I can agree with the points you would like to see changed.

[regnaD kciN]

7. This was something Nate Silver was predicting back in spring...

While, last time, Trump was able to win the electoral college while losing the popular vote by three million, Nate was speculating that the electoral college dynamics this time around might give Trump the victory with even a five-million-vote loss.

The lesson here should be clear: we need to do all we can to win by more than five million votes. If we get enough turnout on our side, we can build a vote total that will surpass any possibility of a popular/electoral vote split.

The second lesson is to focus on winning back the Senate every bit as much as the White House. Because, if the worst-case scenario plays out in the presidential race, we're going to need control of both chambers of Congress to block Trump's agenda...not the least in terms of adding even more Gorsuchs and Kavanaughs to the Supreme Court (where, this time, they'd be likely to replace genuine progressives, not just prior conservatives).

[Recursion]

9. There is literally no vote total that does that

You can win the electoral college with a national popular vote of just 6.

[Andy823]

20. What we need to do is get out the voters

In 2016 -- 92,077,433 people did not vote. That was 46 percent of registered voters.

Many sat it out because they didn't think trump could win, and some just fell for the "both sides are the same, so why vote" meme. Russia helped push that idea.

Others just got tired of all the negativity. We need to get this group motivated to vote this time. I think the majority of them will vote, but as you stated, we need to get all the votes we can to make sure trump is gone.

[gulliver]

24. Agree. We need the Senate and a popular landslide against Trump

[uponit7771]

10. I hate the greedy ass'd analyst, *** TRUMP UNDER PERFORMED MITT ROMNEY !!! *** So how did he

... win when HRC only got less than 100k votes than Obama 2012 ?!!?!

It was 3rd parties in the fives states HRC was polling 2 - 3% above Trump that over performed heavily in the last week !!!

What's notable about those states

All where

Red Gov states
Heavy VSM before election
Russians HEAVILY supported 3rd parties (Stein, Jonson) that WAAAY over performed in those states
All of those states were only 1% or less loss margin by HRC.

Look, instead of these bastards wanting money for being in the know just freakin say it out loud that there is something REALLY REALLY wrong with the 2016 election and stop acting like Trumps base was enough to get him elected last time.

It wasn't, it was the Russian supported 3rd parties that ate up vote for HRC and the VSM measures in those five read lead states.

[applegrove]

12. You're on it. You've got this. Spread the word.

[ritapria]

15. Biden and Sanders

are the candidates who draw the greatest percentage of their support from working class voters without a college degree …. Every poll confirms this finding ……..We need a huge turnout amongst young people and POC of all ages …..They did not show up in large numbers in 2016 ...That trend has to be reversed in 2020 ……...Moderate Republicans will not confess this to pollsters but they will stick with Trump so long as their stock portfolios continue to rise in value ….. If we show up , it will not be close ….If we do not , we'll be sweating it out on Election Night ……..

[smirkymonkey]

17. More KFC Buckets!

That is what I am placing my hopes on. Because if he lives and wins I really won't be able to cope.

[maxrandb]

18. More "Democrats are Doomed" Bullshit from the MSM

Fuck that noise... VOTE!!!!

[edhopper]

21. It's not

it is a real concern. Looking at the numbers, he could lose by 5 - 6 million and still be re-elected.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

36. Reelectoralcolleged.

is the term I use.

I speak of Harrison, Hayes, Bush II, and Trump as electoralcolleged presidents. Allows one to make an important distinction easily.

I reserve "elected" for presidents whose attainment of office reflected the expressed will of the American people on election day.

[edhopper]

22. I have lost sleep over this some nights

I don't get how so many Americans can accept this corrupt asshole.
But enough of them don't care about his daily crimes and outrages that he could be re-elected.
Yes, we must fight it with all our strength, but we could still lose.

[DeminPennswoods]

25. If Dems roll up huge margins in urban/suburban Pennsylvania,

they will win the state simply because that is where all the people live.

[edhopper]

27. Trump only won by 44,000

that's getting 23,000 to change their votes, or getting a few thousand more to get out there and vote!

[StarfishSaver]

26. The Democrats probably knew about this before you and Greg Sargent did and I'm pretty sure

they have a plan for that.

[evertonfc]

30. Joe Biden

is the plan to expand the map. Trump only won WI, MI and PA by a few thousand votes in a low turnout election. To be honest, even Florida was a 98k win that we can easily make up if we turn out. Now, I can't imagine that the demographics have changed in his favor. That said, if we turnout, not even in record numbers, we will win. Biden, in my opinion, makes AZ, OH and GA super competitive. Trump has set up shop in Florida because it's his last stand. Without Florida- we all go to bed early on election night. Don't be surprised to see a young, minority VP pick from FL, GA or AZ.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

37. Yes, Penn, Mich, and Wisc ARE the election next year.

44k, 22k, and 11k margin losses in 2016.

Unless we take back Florida, a somewhat longer shot, those 3 are the ballgame... we MUST win back all 3.

I love Elizabeth Warren -- I'm a moderate but there's nothing in her economic, tax, or even health care platforms that worries me. But if she continues to underperform in those 3 states, yes, I will definitely vote for Uncle Joe in my state's primary.

We bring out 78k voters in those 3 stares who stayed home in 2016 for whatever bad excuse they used. Or we flip 39k voters from Trump to Dem. Or some combination thereof.

Biden/Klobuchar or Biden/Buttigieg may be the best way to do that.

The electoral college is undemocratic and an abomination. It enabled America's first demagogic president to take office in direct violation of the expressed will of the American people. To me he is an electoralcolleged president. I reserve the honor of the word "elected" for presidents the American people, not 270 or more "electors," chose.