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Since the states have never amended the Constitution to give ordinary citizens the power to vote for president, I hope that two-term President Trump will be the last president to be elected by unconstitutional popular vote.

Article II Section 1: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. You are certainly correct in noting that the states do not have to have a popular vote for presidential Electors. In fact, all do - but only 48 states have a single popular vote for all of the state’s electors. Under the Nebraska Plan, also used by Maine, only two Electors are elected statewide, and each of the others is elected in a Congressional District. This difference in practice expresses and validates the authority of the state legislatures to “appoint" the Electors in whatever way they wanna.
Since the congressional districts will in practically all cases be gerrymandered to maximize the number of congressmen of the party which controls the legislature, there is a rough sense in which each state's House of Representatives is more influenced by the state legislature than is a senator elected statewide. Thus, Republican voters could wish that all states used the Nebraska Plan.
Along with the gerrymandering impulse, tho, there is a natural bias against a party which is highly dominant in cities. A city like Philadelphia, say, just has to have districts within it which the Democrats win by 20 percentage points or more. That’s nice for the Democrat incumbent, but prevents that supermajority from influencing more rural districts which Republicans might win more narrowly. Thus there is a natural “gerrymander” effect against Democrats because of their high concentration. The consequence is that Republicans control the legislature of Pennsylvania, and strongly predominate in the PA delegation to the US House of Representatives. This, in a state where the Democrats tend to win the governorship and are very competitive in Senate races.