Is This The New Normal?

7thKeeper said:

Umm... No, that is very very VERY wrong. Because every vote counts, both sides would need to court every possible vote everywhere. It literally would mean both parties would have to take everyone into consideration.

And again, this applies only the presidency, I still do not understand why you keep sticking to that as if it's the only thing that matters. As if there's no representation through the Senate and Congress.

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First, the left generally ignores the flyover states. Not always, but generally. And second, the president is elected by the electoral vote, and while it is Congress that passes bills, it is the president that signs them into law. Without having equal distribution between parties, as president, major parts of the nation have no national support. We also see how certain presidents, generally on the left, are light on crime, and on upholding the law, in general, have left he citizens of this country living in fear and often felt targeted, themselves, by administration if they speak out on how they feel. The president’s only job is to protect the citizens of the United States from enemies both foreign and domestic, and the right is better at doing that than the left.

A New Dawn said:

Yes, I understand how popular elections work. However this past election was an exception to the rule in that sooo many people were upset with Biden’s policies and the state of the union, and with a candidate that couldn’t elucidate anything she saw wrong with Biden’s policies and wouldn’t change anything, that many voted against their own party. In a normal presidential election year, the democrat candidate normally wins the popular election, as I said above, because of the sheer population of the top 4 or 5 blue states. Meaning, drumroll please, if it was left to the popular vote, the concerns of the vast majority of the country, the portions the left doesn’t care about and often has disdain for, are ignored.

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The thing you are not getting is that it isn't about the "sheer population of the top 4 or 5 blue states" it is about the number of "blue" VOTERS. The states are irrelevant under a national, direct election.

Hans Blaster said:

The thing you are not getting is that it isn't about the "sheer population of the top 4 or 5 blue states" it is about the number of "blue" VOTERS. The states are irrelevant under a national, direct election.

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Yea, I do understand that, but the blue states hugely outweigh the reds rates when it comes to numbers of voters in them. They are the 4 or 5 most populous states in the US. If they were equally split, like the swing states, then it would be a fairer race, but because they aren’t (in NY, it is about 50% Democrat and the rest split fairly evenly between independent and Republican) that means that the population of the largest metropolitan areas control the popular vote for the most part. I already mentioned that even in the presidential races that the right has won by electoral vote, the left won the popular vote. The popular vote is counted and displayed every presidential election, and the left wins it most of the time. I’m not sure why you are trying to lecture me about how the popular vote works when we see the results with every presidential election.

Still discussing affirmative action for rural voters?

A New Dawn said:

Yea, I do understand that, but the blue states hugely outweigh the reds rates when it comes to numbers of voters in them.

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I don't think you do. One "red" voter is the same as another in a direct count, regardless of state.

A New Dawn said:

They are the 4 or 5 most populous states in the US.

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Did someone lose track of Texas and Florida?

A New Dawn said:

If they were equally split, like the swing states, then it would be a fairer race, but because they aren’t (in NY, it is about 50% Democrat and the rest split fairly evenly between independent and Republican) that means that the population of the largest metropolitan areas control the popular vote for the most part.

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The largest metro in your state only "contols the vote" for statewide offices (including US Senator and the EV) because it not only leans hard in one direction, but is a huge fraction of the whole state. (And the rest of the state doesn't lean that far in the other direction.)

These massive "popular vote victories" of recent presidential winners look big at a few million, but it is only a couple of percent. If you look back historically at the biggest blowouts in US presidential elections the "popular vote" peaks at about 60% and that is for a virtual EC wipe-out. (Look at Reagan in 1984, Nixon in 1972, Johnson in 1964 for starters.)

You seem to have a "voting bloc" mental block going on. (I know it is hard to break given that we have for decades talked about presidential elections on a winner take all bloc vote by state, but a direct election would not work that way.)

Your state of New York provided more votes for Trump in 2024 than every state except Texas, Florida, and California. For Harris New York was 4th as well after the same three states (California, Texas, Florida), in fact no state provided more votes for either candidate than NY did for Trump. Those votes would count just as much as in any swing state. (Swing states would be a useless category with a direct election.)

A New Dawn said:

I already mentioned that even in the presidential races that the right has won by electoral vote, the left won the popular vote. The popular vote is counted and displayed every presidential election, and the left wins it most of the time.

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Neither "the left" nor "the right" is fielding candidates and slates of electors. It is the Republican Party and the Democratic Party (and a bunch of nobody parties) that field candidates.

A New Dawn said:

I’m not sure why you are trying to lecture me about how the popular vote works when we see the results with every presidential election.

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Because you seem to think states are in anyway relevant to a direct election. They aren't. What we really don't know is how voter turnout in non-competitive states will change and which party will be advantaged by that.

durangodawood said:

Still discussing affirmative action for rural voters?

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I guess they are, but I haven't paid any attention to any arguments for or against the EC, only noting misunderstanding about the meaning of a direct vote count.

Hans Blaster said:

I guess they are, but I haven't paid any attention to any arguments for or against the EC, only noting misunderstanding about the meaning of a direct vote count.

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The popular vote IS the direct vote count. What part of this is hard to understand.

A New Dawn said:

The popular vote IS the direct vote count. What part of this is hard to understand.

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There is a reason I used "direct vote" and it is because we don't have one. The so called "popular vote" is just the sum of the elections that matter (the individual state elections for president).

We *DON'T* know how a direct election would modify those vote counts. For example, voter turnout in non-swing states tends to be lower. Who turns out that doesn't now? Minority party voters? Majority party voters? We don't know.