There is nothing in this about “the electoral system” being trumped by anything, Section 1 Clause 2 of the US Constitution reads: “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.”
There is nothing in the Constitution about allocating electors committed to a Presidential candidate a on a winner-take-all basis, that is simply the system the legislatures of most of the several states have chosen to use (Maine and Nebraska being the current exceptions). In theory a legislature could decide to chose electors itself, rather than on the basis of a popular vote, though I’m sure such a decision would be sufficiently unpopular as to be politically infeasible.
It was with reference to rural Pennsylvania voters that Obama made his comments in 2008 about voters who clung to their guns and religion. James Carville once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between.