Whoa!
Direct election by popular vote would give these same states even more leverage. They would represent an even higher proportion of the population and the vote than they do now, with the electoral college.
As it stands, because of the way electoral votes are distributed, high-population states are under-represented. And low population states are over-represented.
This is because every state starts with at least 3 electoral votes -- regardless of size (two senators and the minimum one Congressman).
Wyoming, Montana, North & South Dakota have only three electoral votes apiece -- for a total of twelve. Their combined population in 2000 was 2793K -- so that each electoral vote represented 233K population.
Indiana, by itself, also has twelve electoral votes...and a population over 6 million. Better than double the previous four states combined -- but Indiana has no more clout in the electoral college than they do. Indiana's proportion is one electoral vote for every 507K residents.
Then, we come to massive California -- 54 EV and a population of 33872K, a proportion of 627K per EV.
Thus, a vote cast in Wyoming (494K pop) is almost four times more powerful than a vote cast in California.
Another problem with direct election by popular vote is that it nationalizes vote fraud. As it is, the impact of the vote manufacturing factories in Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia, et al, is limited to their respective states alone.
But, with a national popular vote, they could produce "whatever it takes".
View the electoral college as a means of stacking the deck in favor of candidates who have some measure of broad inter-regional national appeal, rather than factionalized appeal to only specific segments of the population.
View it also as analogous to the World Series. It's not the team that scores the most runs who will win the Series. It's the team that wins the most games...
Something to consider:
Pennsylvania has two main urban areas -— Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
We elected a governor based on those two urban areas and all he did was pander to them with tons of money in order to get re-elected.
In other words, the red areas are paying to support the blue areas of Pennsylvania more than ever.
This is what would happen if we abolished the electoral college.