General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Hillary Rodham Clinton ... [View all]The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,947 posts)and ought to be abolished, but that's a very uphill battle requiring a constitutional amendment. That is not likely to happen because the small-population states, mostly red states, are happy to have more electoral power in proportion to their populations - and you need ratification by 3/4 of the states (38 of them) for a constitutional amendment to become effective. So the EC, for now and probably for a long time to come, dictates who wins and who loses. Therefore candidates are stuck with running state-by-state campaigns rather than a unified national campaign. They make decisions about appearances and advertising based on the demographics and political leanings of individual states. This takes me back to my earlier point: In WI, MI and PA Hillary lost by a total of less than 80,000 votes. If she had managed to persuade those people to vote for her she would have won the election.
Yes, the EC was the proximate cause of the loss - but why didn't she win the EC? Most of the time the winner of the popular vote also wins the EC (the opposite has happened only four times before this election). What went wrong in those three states? I live in Minnesota,* which has been reliably Democratic since 1972, usually by safe margins. Obama won MN by more than 10% in 2008 and almost 8% in 2012. This year, though, it was a squeaker: Hillary won by only 1.5%. Why did Hillary lose or almost lose reliably Democratic states? That's a fair question, I think.
* Minnesota has one of the highest voter turnout rates in the country. We don't have gerrymandering, voter ID laws or other forms of voter suppression. You can register on voting day or on line. It's probably the cleanest, most liberal electoral system in the U.S. So the Dems' unusually weak showing here this year wasn't due to any kind of voter suppression.