For the zillianth time: The popular vote for potus is irrelevant: only electoral votes matter

[lindysalsagal]

And, going by the electoral vote, Clinton's got it in a landslide:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/#item-6

More Polls, More Bad News for Trump
Fox News released two new state polls on Wednesday. Their survey of Colorado, one of the swing states, has Hillary Clinton up 10 points over Donald Trump. And their Virginia poll has her up by seven.

These polls are bad news, first of all, because Fox has a Republican house effect of about two points. So, Trump is very possibly down by 10 or more points in both states. More important, however, is that the Democrats' "blue wall" (the states the party has taken for six or more presidential elections in a row) has 242 electoral votes. Virginia has 13 EVs, and Colorado has 9, for a total of 264. So, if Trump cannot make some big inroads into these two states, then Clinton will be only six electoral votes from victory. And the odds that The Donald can somehow take all of the other 10 or so swing states are very long, indeed. (Z)

[Wounded Bear]

1. K & R ......for visibility..nt

[mcar]

2. This!

[WinkyDink]

3. And one wins Electoral College votes via.....?

[lindysalsagal]

8. local prescinct vote, not popular vote. Lots of people win the popular and lose the electoral

Our system is not really one vote per person. Each state is different, and the voting districts can be gerrymandered to make the popular vote irrelevant. Some state are winner-tale-all and some are split.

If candidate x has 10% more popular votes, but they're all in the same districts, that he/she would have won anyway, those 10% don't help because candidate x needed them elsewhere to count.

Cities are always high-density dem votes. Some get wasted because of the concentration.

That's why when the red/blue map comes out, it's always 2/3's red, but the blue still won: Red is rural and doesn't pull as much punch. Their districts look bigger on a map, but they're not going to tip the state vote.

[former9thward]

22. You are totally wrong.

First "Lots of people win the popular and lose the electoral" is not true. This almost never happens. Gore in 2000 was a rariety. Usually the electoral vote follows the popular vote winner.

Second the "voting districts" -- as you strangely call them ---- most people say "states" can not be gerrymandered to "make the popular vote irrelevant". How you got that idea is beyond me. Whoever wins the popular vote in a state wins the electoral votes of that state. Maine and Nebraska are the only exceptions and even in those states in reality there is only one electoral vote which can go against the overall popular vote.

[WinkyDink]

30. Thank you. It's rather silly to call the popular vote "irrelevant"!

[niyad]

4. k and r

[In_The_Wind]

5. Kick

[Zen Democrat]

6. Just as the popular vote in the primaries was meaningless. Only delegates matter.

[awoke_in_2003]

7. I think he will get crushed in both. nt

[sarisataka]

9. So I don't need to bother voting

That's good I had other stuff to do anyway


Yes I do know how the electoral college system works. But to see the popular vote is irrelevant is a drastic oversimplification

[Gabi Hayes]

11. what the OP says, I think, that if you have twenty congressional districts, and win 7 by a huge

margin, then lose the other thirteen by one vote each, you lose the state 13 to 7, with all electoral votes going to the one with 13 districts in his/her column.

I think that's incorrect, because just about every state would go red, due to the largely urban concentration of dems.

am I wrong?

[sarisataka]

12. If memory serves,

most states are winner take all based on the total state vote. I believe a couple are proportional in dividing electoral votes. I do not know if any use the system you describe but I could see it happening.

[Gabi Hayes]

14. just as I thought....

here:
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#wtapv

What is the difference between the winner-takes-all rule and proportional voting, and which states follow which rule?

The District of Columbia and 48 states have a winner-takes-all rule for the Electoral College. In these States, whichever candidate receives a majority of the popular vote, or a plurality of the popular vote (less than 50 percent but more than any other candidate), takes all of the state’s Electoral votes.



Only two states, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow the winner-takes-all rule. In those states, there could be a split of Electoral votes among candidates through the state’s system for proportional allocation of votes. For example, Maine has four Electoral votes and two Congressional districts. It awards one Electoral vote per Congressional district and two by the state-wide, “at-large” vote. It is possible for Candidate A to win the first district and receive one Electoral vote, Candidate B to win the second district and receive one Electoral vote, and Candidate C, who finished a close second in both the first and second districts, to win the two at-large Electoral votes. Although this is a possible scenario, it has not actually happened.

this, from the federal register. if that's not right, then the SCOTUS can't intervene in a presidential election!

[lindysalsagal]

13. You're not wrong: but there are enough cities in enough states to go blue

Otherwise, we wouldn't have any blues at all.

The coasts are blue, and the center is red. But those many more red states don't get very many electoral votes to add to the total.

So, Hil could win only 1/3 of the states and still win because those have more electoral votes. Montana, Wyoming, and N and s dakota only get 3 electoral votes, each. so, winning those 4 states is largely irrellevant, when california has 55 and texas has 38. NY and florida are 29.

PA is 20 and Ohio is 18, so you begin to see what they mean by battleground states. Basically, the election is won in the largest states that are purple, like ohio, pa and florida. The rest of the map is always predictably blue or red.

Virginia at 13 and N carolina at 15 can really tip the election. They matter far more than the popular vote.

[Gabi Hayes]

15. see post 14...winner take all, except in DC, Maine, Nebraska

from the federal register archives

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. Not sure how true that is this far out.

I'm not an expert, but I wouldn't be surprised if this far from polling day general polls weren't a better predictor, or at least not much worse, than state ones.

The flip side of this, of course, is that this far out no polls are terribly strong predictors, so I'm not too panicked yet.

[George II]

16. Here's something I posted earlier today about the same thing:

Obama won by less than 4% against Romney, yet won by 23% in the Electoral vote.

Obama won by only 7% of the popular vote against McCain but by 25% in the Electoral vote.

Even when Reagan beat Jimmy Carter, he won by only 9% in the popular vote but 82% in the Electoral vote.

At this time, with Clinton ahead by "only" about 5%, she's projected to get about 310 Electoral Votes to Trump's 226 - she's ahead by about 16%. This with the "Trump Bump" of the impending republican convention, she should widen that lead with the Democratic Convention bump.

[jalan48]

17. I hope we don't have a repeat of 2000.

It's time to jettison the electoral voting method. One person, one vote!

[kiva]

18. You do know that DU was started

when someone lost the popular vote but still became president, right?

The irony is rich.

[fleabiscuit]

25. Well, there is that.

I'm a huge irony fan.

[roamer65]

29. Yep. Two stolen Bu$h elections made this site what it is. N/t

[DemonGoddess]

19. K&R!

[kimbutgar]

20. It won't be a landslide if we don't get off our a$$es and vote

We can not take this for granted Hillary will win. Even if the polls have her 10 points ahead we MUST vote like our life depends on it. We can not have the insane cheeto con man as President.

[lindysalsagal]

21. +1000 n/t.

[fleabiscuit]

26. Yes.

[bucolic_frolic]

23. GOTV

Don't count your chickens

Every vote, every race matters, even on the state level

[pansypoo53219]

24. don't take ANYTHING for granted til the week of the election

[MFM008]

27. HRC could lose

The popular vote and win the electoral.

We have seen this before.....