"Eliminating the Electoral College altogether and electing presidents with a straight popular vote, as Democrats want, is not desirable even if it were feasible"
This is insulting in the extreme. It's moderate fetishism. "Sure, we COULD adopt one-man, one-vote.... but that would disadvantage perspectives that have fewer votes!"
It brings to mind the old saw that to those used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Such a scenario would only 'disadvantage' Republicans to the precise extent that there are fewer of them.
The real danger here is that this alone is insufficient-- it would not fix the systemic biases in the House or in the Senate, and it will not address the self-selecting hyper-political nature of the Supreme Court. Actually allowing the people to elect their leaders by majority vote is presented as a hopelessly radical position, when it is the only solution that will address our ongoing legitimacy crisis.
Very nice piece, although, as Anthony Damiani points out, your objection to electing the president by a simple popular vote is specious. Also, the notion that the "old" Republican Party was ideologically "pure" is false. Although the "old" GOP talked incessantly of its determination to balance the budget, when in office they always ran up huge deficits while crafting elaborate plans for balancing the budget that, amazingly enough, were never enacted into law. Ever since 1994, the driving force of the Republican Party has been the populist nihilism of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. Even prior to that time, an essential part of Ronald Reagan's appeal was his hatred of "welfare"--that is to say, programs that helped black people. Reagan's deep hatred of the American civil rights movement, a sentiment very much shared by William F. Buckley, William Rehnquist, and Antonine Scalia, is something that "conservatives" always manage to forget.
"Democrats, on the other hand, have to hit as much as 53 or 54 percent to win the presidency. And this gap is only growing. Within a few more election cycles, Craig maintains, a Republican could get into the White House despite losing the popular vote by 5 to 10 percent or even more."
The first part is true but the second seems unlikely that the advantage will ever get to 5-10%.
Trump in 2016 pushed the upper limit in winning the EC while losing the PV by 2.1% to Hillary Clinton but Biden handily won the EC with a margin of 4.4% in 2020 so likely the GOP advantage is in the 3% range. GWB only lost the popular vote in 2000 by 0.5% and the argument could be made that Ralph Nader was the cause.
Most of that advantage in the EC is due to the winner take all awarding of electors, and as the author mentioned is about Dems winning their big states- NY, IL, CA- by much bigger margins than the R bigs- OH, TX, FL, so wasting votes. The small state advantage is much less important. In close elections the number of states won by the Rs has never exceeded 10 (9 in 2000 and 2016) so some 18 electors out of 538.
To get to a 5-10% advantage would require massive voting changes where in reality the trends favor the R advantage diminishing. For the advantage to increase for the Rs would mean that they won their states by less and Dems won their states by more, but in 2020 the swing to the Dems was more nationally than in NY, CA, and IL. For the Rs FL and OH had bigger R margins wasting votes. The exception to this was TX which had a closer election. However TX has been shifting blue to the point where it will become a swing state and conceivably a blue state at which point the EC advantage might actually shift to the Dems.
The TX trend should strike fear among the Rs. From 2012 to 2020 the R margin in Tx went from Romney's +15.8 to Trump 2016's +9.0 to Trump's 2020 3.4%. This is a remarkable shift and coincides with the growth of liberal suburbs and educated liberal voters migrating to TX.
"Eliminating the Electoral College altogether and electing presidents with a straight popular vote, as Democrats want, is not desirable even if it were feasible"
This is insulting in the extreme. It's moderate fetishism. "Sure, we COULD adopt one-man, one-vote.... but that would disadvantage perspectives that have fewer votes!"
It brings to mind the old saw that to those used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Such a scenario would only 'disadvantage' Republicans to the precise extent that there are fewer of them.
The real danger here is that this alone is insufficient-- it would not fix the systemic biases in the House or in the Senate, and it will not address the self-selecting hyper-political nature of the Supreme Court. Actually allowing the people to elect their leaders by majority vote is presented as a hopelessly radical position, when it is the only solution that will address our ongoing legitimacy crisis.
Very nice piece, although, as Anthony Damiani points out, your objection to electing the president by a simple popular vote is specious. Also, the notion that the "old" Republican Party was ideologically "pure" is false. Although the "old" GOP talked incessantly of its determination to balance the budget, when in office they always ran up huge deficits while crafting elaborate plans for balancing the budget that, amazingly enough, were never enacted into law. Ever since 1994, the driving force of the Republican Party has been the populist nihilism of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. Even prior to that time, an essential part of Ronald Reagan's appeal was his hatred of "welfare"--that is to say, programs that helped black people. Reagan's deep hatred of the American civil rights movement, a sentiment very much shared by William F. Buckley, William Rehnquist, and Antonine Scalia, is something that "conservatives" always manage to forget.
"Democrats, on the other hand, have to hit as much as 53 or 54 percent to win the presidency. And this gap is only growing. Within a few more election cycles, Craig maintains, a Republican could get into the White House despite losing the popular vote by 5 to 10 percent or even more."
The first part is true but the second seems unlikely that the advantage will ever get to 5-10%.
Trump in 2016 pushed the upper limit in winning the EC while losing the PV by 2.1% to Hillary Clinton but Biden handily won the EC with a margin of 4.4% in 2020 so likely the GOP advantage is in the 3% range. GWB only lost the popular vote in 2000 by 0.5% and the argument could be made that Ralph Nader was the cause.
Most of that advantage in the EC is due to the winner take all awarding of electors, and as the author mentioned is about Dems winning their big states- NY, IL, CA- by much bigger margins than the R bigs- OH, TX, FL, so wasting votes. The small state advantage is much less important. In close elections the number of states won by the Rs has never exceeded 10 (9 in 2000 and 2016) so some 18 electors out of 538.
To get to a 5-10% advantage would require massive voting changes where in reality the trends favor the R advantage diminishing. For the advantage to increase for the Rs would mean that they won their states by less and Dems won their states by more, but in 2020 the swing to the Dems was more nationally than in NY, CA, and IL. For the Rs FL and OH had bigger R margins wasting votes. The exception to this was TX which had a closer election. However TX has been shifting blue to the point where it will become a swing state and conceivably a blue state at which point the EC advantage might actually shift to the Dems.
The TX trend should strike fear among the Rs. From 2012 to 2020 the R margin in Tx went from Romney's +15.8 to Trump 2016's +9.0 to Trump's 2020 3.4%. This is a remarkable shift and coincides with the growth of liberal suburbs and educated liberal voters migrating to TX.