I’ve seen several people claim that their state’s vote for the US presidential election doesn’t matter because their district is gerrymandered, which does not matter for most states.
Most states use the state’s popular vote to determine who the entire state’s electoral college votes go to. No matter how gerrymandered your district is*, every individual vote matters for assigning the electoral vote. [ETA: Nearly] Every single district in a state could go red but the state goes blue for president because of the popular vote.
*Maine and Nebraska are the notable differences who allot individual electors based on the popular vote within their congressional districts and the overall popular vote. It’s possible there are other exceptions and I’m sure commenters will happily point them out.
Edit: added strikethrough to my last statement because now I have confirmed it.
Of the 50 states, all but two award all of their presidential electors to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in the state (Maine and Nebraska each award two of their electors to the candidate who wins a plurality of the statewide vote; the remaining electors are allocated to the winners of the plurality vote in the states’ congressional districts). (source)
Do states have more or less electoral votes based on population?
Like would California have more say in who becomes president than Idaho?
Or is it that stupid system where each state has an equal amount of votes?
Both actually. Each state gets 2 plus the proportional split ( based on population)of the remaining 435. So California as a whole has more say than Idaho as a whole but each individual voter in California has less say than an individual voter in Idaho.
It’s assigned proportionally but each state gets a few extra votes to give smaller states more weight.
Originally, states would then award these proportionally, but some state got “smart” and realized that if they gave all their votes to the most popular candidate they’d get more attention … other states soon followed suite and Madison went and died before he could fix this abuse of the system (which bothered him).
https://fairvote.org/why-james-madison-wanted-to-change-the-way-we-vote-for-president/
Inbetween. Each state has a number of voters for the electoral college, but it is not proportional to the population of the state. A less populous state vote is worth more than a populous state generally.
That is why Trump became president while losing the popular vote in 2016, and swing states are so important.
Population of a state does dictate the number of electorial votes, which is why California has 54. Florida surpassed population of NY a few years back and now you will see Florida has 30, while NY has 28. On the other hand population is disproportionately represented when it comes to the Senate, because each state has 2 senators, regardless of population.
“Swing states” are just important in the fact that if you already know 60% of a state will vote red/blue you don’t need to campaign there as much, because convincing 10% of the population to change their mind is harder than convincing 3%.
That said, Texas is seen as “Red” and people claim Florida is “Red” these days as well. A 3% flop in 2020 would have made both states blue.
Note that every state that gained electorial votes since last election I believe is expected to vote red though, as they are usually tied to lower taxes and cost of living, which many people I believe moved to when remote work became more prominent (others will argue because people moved for other reasons but that’s neither here nor there when it comes to the number of electors part)