# "Campaign would have been different using popular vote" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 22, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769 "2016-11-22T22:03:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/21 "2016-11-23T15:16:39Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Turns out the goal of the Trump campaign was to win the electoral college all along. Well, sure. As opposed to what? ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/22 "2016-11-23T15:18:34Z")
It’s similar to when a football commentator brings up the missed field goal in the first quarter as being the deciding factor in the close game in the fourth quarter as if everything would have proceeded exactly the same regardless of the outcome of that kick. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/23 "2016-11-23T18:10:35Z")
Trump still would have lost the popular vote if it was based on a popular vote and he tailored his message differently. Hillary has a 2 million point lead now, that is a lot of a gap to make up, and Hillarys numbers might go higher as well with her own different targeting. Republicans have, and will continue to be, a minority majority party in power for years to come unless we can figure out a way to win in this genuinely rigged system. A system rigged against democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/24 "2016-11-23T21:05:34Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Trump still would have lost the popular vote if it was based on a popular vote and he tailored his message differently. > > Hillary has a 2 million point lead now, that is a lot of a gap to make up, and Hillarys numbers might go higher as well with her own different targeting. > Republicans have, and will continue to be, a minority majority party in power for years to come unless we can figure out a way to win in this genuinely rigged system. A system rigged against democrats. If it’s rigged against the Democrats it isn’t working very well, given that we’ve had Democrat presidents for 16 of the last 24 years. The reality is that over the last few decades population growth in large metropolitan areas has outstripped that of rural, suburban and outlying areas, and given that more densely populated areas tend to vote liberal, under a popular vote only system this would allow unfair power over the country as a whole by the large cities, a situation the Founding Fathers foresaw and took measures to counter through the creation of the electoral college, which is intended to allow all of the country’s states to have a say in its governance. This is after all the United States, not the States United Under California and New York. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/25 "2016-11-23T22:03:09Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Well, sure. As opposed to what? As opposed to attempting to win the popular vote and falling short but still eking out a win via the electoral college. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/26 "2016-11-23T22:15:05Z")
Weird thing to be proud of, much less gloat over. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/27 "2016-11-23T23:37:20Z")
Smarter, more prescient and more cost-effective way to win the presidency perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/28 "2016-11-24T00:32:46Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > If it’s rigged against the Democrats it isn’t working very well, given that we’ve had Democrat presidents for 16 of the last 24 years. > > The reality is that over the last few decades population growth in large metropolitan areas has outstripped that of rural, suburban and outlying areas, and given that more densely populated areas tend to vote liberal, under a popular vote only system this would allow unfair power over the country as a whole by the large cities, a situation the Founding Fathers foresaw and took measures to counter through the creation of the electoral college, which is intended to allow all of the country’s states to have a say in its governance. This is after all the United States, not the States United Under California and New York. In the past 5 elections for president, democrats lost the presidency TWICE while also winning the popular vote. The electoral college is weighted against democrats since smaller more conservative low to NO pop states have outsized representation of the nation. It’s worse in the house. The irony is the less democratic body when it was founded, the Senate, is actually MORE representative of actual votes of the nation. That is how twisted and effed up the game is stacked against democrats. People like you keep complaining about places like California and NY controlling everything, first that is not what would happen, but right now the fate of FAR MORE people and places are controlled by what happens in a select few states that happen to have electorates that are split down the middle. LESS issues are catered to in this system. Presumably a national popular vote would incentivize more broad political platforms designed to address the needs and desires of more people in MORE varied location around the entire nation than being a NATIONAL referendum on the specific issues that happen to affect a select few toss up states. This bullshit that keeps being peddled is not even true, and people accept it. I wish they would just be honest. If you are conservative, cut the crap about the intentions of the founders, they did not even want direct election of senators. The reason conservatives are fond of the current system, is that it favors them being in power even though they convince LESS of the god damn nation. It favors LAND over people, dirt patches, empty space. What a lovely thing to have on your side, you don’t HAVE to convince more people your policies are better to take the reigns of power for the ENTIRE NATION, you just have to convince a few in a few places. Spare me this talk about this being the better system, it’s not. I don’t think we should waste time trying to repeal it because the reason it’s REALLY propped up is pure self interest that will never yield, but at LEAST give me and others the respect of not talking nonsense about this systems virtues. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/29 "2016-11-24T01:39:28Z")
Completely aside from however different the campaigns would or wouldn’t be, the electorate itself would be different. As it is, turnout in swing states is 5-10% higher than non-swing states. Evening that number out would throw ten million more votes into the hopper. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/30 "2016-11-24T02:00:10Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Maybe you’re right that Trump would have won under either system, and maybe you’re not. > > But whether or not you’re right, I’d still like to see future elections decided in a less arbitrary manner. It is not a healthy thing in a democracy For the President - unlike the holder of every other Federal elected office - to not be the person who won the most votes, but the person who won the right number of votes in the right places. There is nothing arbitrary about it. > [@](#): > > We had a good run, of maybe 30 consecutive Presidential elections where the EC and the popular vote would have produced the same result. But now they’ve differed in two of the past five. Maybe Trump would have won anyway if popular vote determined the President, just the way it determines Senators, Representatives, governors, etc. Next time, _let’s find out_. Start working on that constitutional amendment. > [@](#): > > FWIW, Hillary’s popular vote margin is now up to 1.95 million. It’s not worth anything. Even at 10 million. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/31 "2016-11-24T07:26:18Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Most likely would mean that more people would participate. Not held back by living in a red or blue state, but adding to the common pool of citizens. Oddly enough, the Republican Party, who’s faith depends on the dogma that America is basically center-right, and most Americans agree with them…oppose such expansion. How very odd. This is exactly true. I am a conservative, and I live in Illinois. I voted for Trump, even though I knew that my vote would have zero impact on his chances, since I knew that Illinois would go for Hillary in the Electoral College. But many, many, many of my fellow Illinoisans did not bother to vote, since they knew that it would not matter. If the election were based on a popular vote, they WOULD have voted for Trump. And THAT is why the actual “popular” vote has zero meaning. Contrary to CNN and the other mainstream media acolytes, Hillary did not “win the popular vote,” because we did not HAVE a popular vote. ---
**Author:** ![OriginalGangster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea5d25/32.png) [@OriginalGangster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OriginalGangster)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/32 "2016-11-24T07:51:18Z")
So the popular vote would have brought out more voters. lol. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/33 "2016-11-24T11:38:22Z")
> [@OriginalGangster](#): > > So the popular vote would have brought out more voters. lol. “lol” is not an argument. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/34 "2016-11-24T13:52:32Z")
It is if its all you got. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/35 "2016-11-24T14:02:57Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > But, surely, on the figures the Clinton campaign was _more_ adept at motivating voters to vote for them? They got more votes, after all. > > Trump didn’t need a majority of the popular vote to get elected, and he didn’t get it and was nevertheless elected (by the skin of his teeth, admittedly). But it doesn’t follow that if he _did_ need a majority of the popular vote to be elected he would have got it. He might or might not. To use a sports analogy, it would be the difference of playing a one-game playoff and a best of 7 championship series. Who cares if team A runs up the scores and wallops team B by double digit margins if team B wins more games? In this case, Clinton routed Trump in democratic-friendly states with large populations. But Trump’s strategy was to win states that mattered, even if by just a hair, not to lose respectably in California. Had that been the case, more resources would have been devoted to California to get higher turnout in places like Orange County to cancel out the votes in places like Oakland and San Francisco. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/36 "2016-11-24T14:22:20Z")
Excuse me, you think that Trump had a “strategy”? Seriously? Are there really more people in Orange County than in Oakland and San Francisco? With all due awe, we may need a bit more than your say-so. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/37 "2016-11-24T15:29:29Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Excuse me, you think that Trump had a “strategy”? Seriously? He had multiple strategies. The fuel of his campaign was populism but he never wavered from his belief that he could win against the democrats by winning over America’s heartland and flipping states that hadn’t voted for a Republican since the 1980s, something which most people - especially the pundits here on SDMB - believed he was foolish for pursuing. He made that clear that he thought he could do this from the beginning. And to the surprise of many, he did. Sure, there were indeed stages of ‘mania’ in which he thought he could take states like California and Oregon, too. But in the end he achieved enough of what he set out to do to win the election. > [@elucidator](#): > > Are there really more people in Orange County than in Oakland and San Francisco? That’s not the point. He wouldn’t need to win California, he would need to just enough of the state’s more conservative voters to get off their couches and vote rather than staying home based on the assumption that their votes don’t matter. He would then be able to focus on running up the score in places like Texas and in rural county after rural county in states throughout the country. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/38 "2016-11-24T16:28:05Z")
Well, OK, give us your best guess. What is more popular in America, the “pro-life” movement or Planned Parenthood? Who, Obama or Trump? Gay marriage, or an Amendment prohibiting it? Medicare, or mud and leeches? Your Uncle Fred, the tighty righty, wants desperately to believe that he is a “movement”, or really, an anti-movement. That this election means that the tide of history, a generation in the making, is no longer moving against him but has stopped dead in its tracks and will reverse, flow backwards. Probably the same guy who told you that we would be greeted as liberators, that the grateful Iraqi people would build a giant statue of GeeDubya in downtown Baghdad. 'Course, it’s entirely your right to agree. Do you? ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/39 "2016-11-24T18:48:41Z")
Ah, the tide of history ! It always drives it’s way relentlessly to where the speaker wants it to. Mostly, ordinary plain folks vote for demented right-wing folks and Kochites, austerity for others, dismantling welfare and exercising all that weaponry on wicked foreigners, because that’s what they _want_ — not because they’re dupes. Most people are on board with the nastiness the liberals now deplore. One reason why it didn’t matter who won, tough ol’ Hil in charge of the Hellfire missiles raining on bad foreigners or crowd pleasing Donnie grabbing Obama’s Drone Console. _ **Terror Tuesdays for Tots !** _ ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769/40 "2016-11-24T19:04:43Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > …Most people are on board with the nastiness the liberals now deplore… By what measure? Or have you some secret metric denied to the rest of us? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/campaign-would-have-been-different-using-popular-vote/772769.md?page=3)