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A short(-ish) rant/thread on winning presidential elections and how screwed up the electoral college truly is.
In the popular vote Joe Biden is ahead by 6,342,000+ votes. However, he didn't win the election by that margin. He won the election by 43,709 votes... (1/10)
In the popular vote Joe Biden is ahead by 6,342,000+ votes. However, he didn't win the election by that margin. He won the election by 43,709 votes... (1/10)
If you look at Biden's win in Arizona (10,457 votes), Georgia (12,670 votes), & Wisconsin (20,682 votes), that totals 43,709 votes. Those three states have 37 electoral votes among them (11, 16, and 10 respectively). Had Biden lost all three, he would have... (2/10)
tied President Trump in the electoral college 269-269. Given that Republicans control a majority of house delegations and that President Trump would have won 28 states, the House of Representatives would have declared him president (& the Senate would declare Pence VP)... (3/10)
So, if 43,709 Biden voters in those three states stayed home. Or if 21,855 Biden voters had switched their votes to Trump, Trump would have been reelected--fair and square. But think about that reality. The candidate who received 6.3 million fewer votes would have won... (4/10)
It would have been the first time in history that a person won a *MAJORITY* of the popular vote, yet lost the election. Biden is currently 4.03% ahead of Trump in the popular vote (51.09% to 47.06%). That possibility was real, and while Dems would have been furious... (5/10)
It would have been a legal, constitutional, and by-the-book win for President Trump. But it also shows the wild disenfranchising, non-majoritarian nature of the electoral college. And if the shoe were on the other foot... (6/10)
And a Democratic candidate won the electoral college while a Republican candidate won over 6 million more votes, the GOP would be outraged. And they should have been in that situation. The counter is "if we had a different system Trump wouldve campaigned differently!"... (7/10)
And surely that is true (Biden would have also). But where would Trump have netted an addition 6.3+million additional votes? He campaigned hard in big swing states (OH, TX, AZ, GA, MI, PA, WI, FL). Would he have pulled those votes out of NY, CA, WA, MA, MD? Not a chance... (8/10)
The reality is that an outcome like this can easily happen in the future. Given that Republicans lost the popular vote 7 of the last 8 elections, imagine a Republican candidate wins the electoral college while losing the popular vote by 6, 7, or 8 million popular votes... (9/10)
That situation would be perfectly legal and in line with constitutional structure. But it is a real recipe to break trust in institutions, delegitimize the office of the president, diminish faith in elections, & create unrest. That was avoided in 2020, but not forever. (10/10)
