With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes, it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency — that is, a mere 26% of the nation’s votes.
If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.
Even in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don’t campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don’t control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn’t have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles. If Los Angeles cannot control statewide elections in California, it can hardly control a nationwide election.
In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland together cannot control a statewide election in California.
Similarly, Republicans dominate Texas politics without carrying big cities such as Dallas and Houston.
There are numerous other examples of Republicans who won races for governor and U.S. Senator in other states that have big cities (e.g., New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) without ever carrying the big cities of their respective states.
You can’t mix elections for state offices within the state to national elections.
Without the electoral college it’s all about getting 50% plus 1 of around 135-140 million votes. Demographics and resources change. Why would a national candidate for president waste any money in areas where it just won’t matter? Of the blue states of CA, NY, IL, MA, OR, WA, PA, NJ, WI, and CT they alone have 48 million registered voters. Large red states and the south have about the same. Toss ups are MO, OH, FL, CO, etc.
The Dems and libs would just concentrate on big cities with large minority populations. When you are just trying to get the majority of the whole why bother in districts where you can’t win or there aren’t enough votes to bother? And as you can see from the stats, just a small increase in turnout (or stealing) in those huge cities with Dem-friendly demographics and they crush the opposition.
They’ll concentrate their resources on those places and spend more on registration and turnout. Why bother spending a dime in Georgia other that Atlanta? How much can you save when you know where you won’t win since you don’t need to win the state to get it’s electoral votes? Millions!
They would only need the average 35-40% of Dems in red states to win nationwide. And they’ll only have to spend token money in the blue cities in those red states. They already have huge machines for that. Again, more concentrated resources instead of spreading them out trying to win a state they might before have just written off.
Look at Oklahoma for example. Every county votes red as a majority. The GOP usually wins it’s electoral votes. Without that all you need is 45% of the state that you can get in OK City and Norman. In Missouri all you need is enough votes out of St. Louis and Kansas City to add to the national total. And MO is considered a “swing” state.
They can also just not bother in states like New Mexico when the total vote is just too small to worry about. The left will always get the left vote no matter what. You really think people in Wyoming will ever see a presidential candidate in person?
I’ll stick with the Founders. The EC keeps equality among the states when it comes to electing the president.