Examination of Electoral Maps Reveals Just How Close Recent Elections Have Been
Gardner Magazine is showing you the actual electoral maps of 2016 and 2020 for those who don’t think of the election in terms of the electoral college, which is what we actually use. It illustrates why the candidates focus on so-called “swing states’ and don’t campaign as much in states which are solidly Republican or solidly Democrat. Simply put, it doesn’t matter whether you win a state by many votes or just a few.
With just a 1% vote shift to the opponent, the results of the 2016 and 2020 elections would have been the opposite.
2016: Trump got 306 to Clinton 232 electoral votes. However, with just a 1% increase in votes to Clinton, she would have won with 275 electoral votes.
2020: Biden got 303 to Trump 235 electoral votes. However, with just a 1% increase in votes to Trump, he would have won with 272 electoral votes.
What this illustrates: (1) Our electoral system where we keep the power in the states rather than going by a national popular vote. This was done by our founders to protect us. (2) In 2016, Clinton was right to be upset about Comey’s public statements about her emails as that arguably gave the election to Trump, and in 2020, Trump was right to be upset about the suppression about the Hunter Biden laptop as that arguably gave the election to Biden. (3) In the 2024 election, it is entirely possible that the winning candidate will have just slightly more electoral votes than needed – a close election.
Note: While Massachusetts tends to be a liberal state, most of the country is much more conservative as is illustrated by all the red states. In general, more blue states have greater populations (such as California and New York State) which equates to more electoral votes. Each state has a number of electoral votes equal to its number of senators and representatives, plus Washington D.C. has 3, for a total of 538 up for grabs. For example, the State of New Hampshire has 4 electoral votes with 2 senators and 2 representatives even though it has a total population of 1.4 million. U.S. total population is about 335 million. If electoral votes were based on population alone, New Hampshire would have only 2, or half as much.
History of the electoral College: Several times in history, candidates for President have received more popular votes nationally but lost the electoral college. At our nation’s founding, the electoral college was a compromise. Arguments against changing it revolve around concerns that larger, more populous states would overpower the less populous states. Lower population in rural states means more land for our food supply. A change to a popular vote would be an incentive for states to attract population and would arguably ruin our country. In 1960, John F. Kennedy’s popular vote margin was just over 118,000 votes with a total of almost 69 million votes cast. Without the electoral college, results might have been challenged in the country’s 170,000 voting precincts.