Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million and still lost.
If Kamala wins the popular vote, how much does she have to win by to flip
the electoral college to her side?
Does it matter what states she wins in if the margins are low?
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million and still lost.
If Kamala wins the popular vote, how much does she have to win by to flip
the electoral college to her side?
Does it matter what states she wins in if the margins are low?
Removed by mod
I’m going to pile on to your good answer.
Since you only need 51% to win all of a state’s electoral votes, any additional votes beyond 51% could be considered excess votes that are not helpful. The system rewards candidates whose supporters are spread around, and punishes candidates whose supporters are heavily concentrated in a handful of states.
For example, in 2016 Hilary Clinton got 4,269,978 more votes in California than Trump. That’s 4,269,977 more than she needed to win the state. Meanwhile, she lost Michigan by 10,704 votes, lost Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes, lost Florida by 112,912, etc. Hell, she lost Texas by less than a million votes. If Hilary’s supporters in California had been spread around in other states she would have won the national election easily.
This is part of why I haven’t left Ohio, have beat back on the argument that “I should just move [to somewhere that’s more politically aligned with my beliefs]” (which I’ve heard that line enough, I fully believe it’s a GOP driven talking point), and I’ve encouraged other left-leaning folks to stay or come back.
I believe this is the last election where Maine will have split electoral votes, since they joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact earlier this year.
That doesn’t do anything until it has enough states that it actually guarantees the person that wins the popular vote, wins.
You’re right, I should’ve read better
Maybe some day…