Trump pulled almost 63-million votes in 2016. At this point, you can project out that black male-Trump-vote will be double what it was in 2016. You can also project that the Latino vote for Trump in 2016....probably doubles this time around.
Then you go and calculate the election being either a Joe Biden situation or Mayor Pete situation. Neither bring charisma or excitement to average or potential Democratic voters.
So I would guess that Trump takes his 2016 thirty states that he won, and his national public vote goes to around sixty-five million...so he wins both ways. But this Electoral College rule change in these 15-odd states...will result in an enormous win, and various challenges by people who are angry that their vote in California....actually went to Donald Trump.
As I understand it, the so-called national popular vote thing won’t take effect unless the total EV from the states adopting this risky scheme equals 270 or more. Right now it stands at 189, with the big blue states already counted in that total. There is legislation pending in additional states totaling 89 votes, but most of them are red or purple.
It’s unlikely that they will reach the 270 threshold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
Consider the chaos in Floriduh in 2000, and make it nation wide for 2020. That’s what the Electoral College, as envisioned by the founders, will prevent. The luxury of knowing who the next president will be the night of the election, or even the next day will be a quaint memory of the past. We will see recounts and lawsuits for months that may even take us past inauguration day in 2021.
The Electoral College is the firewall against massive illegal voting.