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I'm not in favor of the electoral college, but wouldn't its elimination merely shift this problem to politicians only visiting the most poulated states (e.g. Ca

I'm not in favor of the electoral college, but wouldn't its elimination merely shift this problem to politicians only visiting the most poulated states (e.g. California) anyway?

zik 7y ago
At least then they'd be representing the concerns of a larger number of people which is arguably what they should be doing as representatives.
TylerE 7y ago
I think the whole “visiting” thing is overblown. We have TV and the Internet. This isn’t the 19th century when the only way the average American might EVER see or hear a President would be a short speech off the back of a train car.
- jeremyjh 7y ago
  That's right. Whats at stake is in which markets and demographics the ad spend goes.
  - ajmurmann 7y ago
    Isn't the program also partially being tailored to those states?
- mattnewton 7y ago
  Visiting here is a proxy for overall campaign message initiatives, which includes physical visits, but also ad buy and even shaping the candidates message and platform to better appeal to the swing stage demographic. Arguably the last one is the biggest potential problem since it means some minority has an outside influence on candidates.
  - freewilly1040 7y ago
    As an example of this imbalance shaping platforms see American policy on Cuba, where conservative policy is enduringly punitive appeal to Florida voters
  - Taniwha 7y ago
    It's not just visiting, it's pork too, there's a reason why there's a net wealth transfer through taxes from those states that are not in play to those that are. A NPV would go some way to spread the federal spending around a little more fairly
- maratd 7y ago
  Nobody cares about visiting. They can craft their policies to entirely exclude or screw over states that aren't worth their time. For example, favor specific industries over others that are heavy in one state vs another. They'll do that anyway, but may think twice if they need to build a coalition of smaller states vs just winning the popular vote.
  - hyperpape 7y ago
    This idea doesn’t seem obvious to me. The biggest states are: California Texas Florida New York Pennsylvania Ohio Illinois Georgia North Carolina Michigan Which major industry unites them? Which major industries are not represented? You have tech, finance, automakers, agriculture, tourism, and oil. Maybe not much mining and fishing? Probably something else, but these are very different states.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - DSMan195276 7y ago
      It's worth adding that those states aren't even close to as homogeneous as most tend to assume. Only 60% of California voted Democrat in 2016, and you have to assume the turnout for Republicans would be higher if it wasn't guaranteed that their vote (for president) was meaningless. With the current system, you can cater only to the populous parts of California and win the whole state, and that goes for most other states as well. With a popular vote, that ~30 to 40% of California is relevant again, along with significant chunks of other states. It's also worth noting the math really doesn't work out, the electoral college makes it easier to win the whole thing while carrying less states/votes (Which really shouldn't be surprising). With both the popular vote and the electoral college, you only have to take the 10 most populous states to win the whole thing. But the difference is that, with the current electoral college you generally only need to get 51% of the vote to win the whole state, which is significantly easier and turns states like California from a 60% to a 100%. With the popular vote, to actually win in that fashion you would have to take almost every vote in those states, which is practically impossible considering the diversity.
- 1337biz 7y ago
  You can't discount Trump's stadium tours as an important part in his campaign strategy. It's essential for emotionalizing the base. Almost the same way a Spotify stream compares to a live arena concert. I would even go so far that offline events have in these digital times a much higher voter activation potential.
- ianai 7y ago
  Probably the biggest reason for physically visiting places is to get bigger donations from people and interest groups. Also to generate buzz that will land in the 24 hour media cycle.
- rayiner 7y ago
  I totally underestimated the importance of visiting until I went to Iowa earlier this month. (My wife went to high school and college there and we went back for the state fair and some campaign events.) It shattered my East-coast preconceptions about how elections work. Because of the caucus system,[1] you actually have to meet people in person to encourage them to advocate for you at the caucus. My wife got selfies with nearly every democratic candidate. I met the mayor of New York at a Buffalo Wild Wings. (He was just there for a snack, as were we.) You go to a diner with like 20 people and a presidential candidate has to sit there and field rambling questions from 80 year old ladies. It’s completely nuts, but the people who engage in the process (and they are completely ordinary people) are incredibly committed to their role. The other thing I came away with from the whole process is a newfound appreciation for the “who would I like to have a beer with” factor. The issues and policy proposals you read on the Internet don’t really matter—none of that stuff will ever get through Congress. Being able to look the person in the eye, and see how they carry themselves while shleping to half a dozen events every day—that really makes an impression. [1] In the Iowa Democratic caucuses, registered party members in a precinct get together, discuss the candidates, take a first round vote where some candidates are cut, discuss the candidates some more, and then take a final vote.
  - rapind 7y ago
    "None of that stuff will get through Congress" I have a different opinion. Sanders and to a lesser extent Warren have created massive volunteer networks that do have a pretty big impact, like everywhere. Obama had that too, but it was dismantled when he took office (insanity). There's a good argument to say Obama would have been far more impactful had he kept it going. Sanders has no intention of shutting down his "revolution" (not my words) whether he does or doesn't get the nomination. There's going to be some serious pressure (like there already has) on congress in the years to come. I don't think the same ol' same ol' will continue much longer. I don't mean to be a fan boy, but it's pretty phenomenal what he / they have done since 2016, and it resonates with a lot of people. CNN and MSNBC don't talk about it too often, but it's very real. Don't take my word for it though. Easily researched.
    - tptacek 7y ago
- heedlessly2 7y ago
  No, at the end of the day. People are humans and are affected by face-to-face interactions. Communication via television and internet feels impersonal. When a candidate visits your city, they discuss how your local and state politics tie together. So candidates can personalize their speeches towards a specific region per visit. Some people might not care about this, but many others will
hyperpape 7y ago
The answer is probably complicated. Game theoretically, they’ll pay attention[0] to the places where their campaigning has the biggest marginal impact, but that doesn’t immediately tell us much. That will make big urban areas appealing. However, if you think there are diminishing returns, it should cause them to spread that attention more, avoiding the last month where they repeatedly visit the same state over and over again. [0] This might or might mean visiting those states.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> I'm not in favor of the electoral college, but wouldn't its elimination merely shift this problem to politicians only visiting the most poulated states (e.g. California) anyway? “Politicians”, no, it only effects Presidential (and Vice-Presidential) candidates. It has no direct effect on other politicians. Would it make them more likely to visit densely populated areas (where you can influence more poeple per unit time)? Yeah, probably. Right now, they focus on “swing states”, but within those states, on densely populated areas, for just that reason. But as long as there is a Senate, they'd be encouraged to visit small states (where a small number of voters determine a large share of power in the Senate, which can block both laws and Presidential appointments) for coattail effects. And they’d still be encouraged to spend efforts on campaigning in low-cost media markets where small money reaches lots of voters (even ones that would currently be neglected because the states aren't viewed as swingable), just probably not with personal visits as much, without some kind of broader free media exposure opportunities, because the candidates themselves can't be in more than one place at once.
cecilpl2 7y ago
Shouldn't politicians generally spend time and attention on the problems that affect the most people?
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  The region that gows all of our food affects us all. Just because you dont live in the midwest and population density is lower, does not make them less important.
delecti 7y ago
I've seen this pointed out, and absolutely do not see it as a problem. What's wrong with politicians paying more attention to the needs of more people? They're going to campaign somewhere, why should they pay more attention to Cleveland, Ohio (metro area population ~2m) than Los Angeles (city population 3m, metro population over 13m)?
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  The issue is more that everyone should get attention, and removing the electoral college & going straight to popular vote will honestly erode that- as others have noted, politicians will spend more time in the highest population areas and possibly not the highest need areas.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    > everyone should get attention I’m not entirely convinced presidential candidates share this belief.
  - delecti 7y ago
    They already don't spend time equally. Currently they spend time where the expected votes are closest to 50:50. Why is that preferable to going to where there are the most undecided voters, which is what would happen?
  - daveFNbuck 7y ago
    They'll spend more time campaigning in the areas with the most people who can be convinced to change their votes. This isn't necessarily going to be the highest population areas, as those areas tend to be solidly liberal. I don't know why the electoral college would be better at identifying high need areas than willingness to change your vote. Shouldn't people who need help be more likely to change their vote than to live in a purple state?
    - wh0knows 7y ago
      This isn't necessarily true. If a 10m pop area has a 70-30 split, it's still better to campaign there than a 5m pop area with a 50-50 split. In absolute numbers it's still 3 million supporters versus 2.5 million supporters.
pknopf 7y ago
Not if you make the votes proportional. There are a huge number of Republicans in California that would have just as much of a say than Florida/Ohio/etc.
zhoujianfu 7y ago
This site has good responses for that question here: https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.5 https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.5
ananonymoususer 7y ago
No, politicians would not need to visit California because the way in which the electoral college is being eliminated is by keeping it intact, but forcing the state electors to follow the federal trend instead of the local one. The result will be ALL of California's electors going "blue" regardless of how the individual people vote. If we figured out a way of actually eliminating the electoral college, then it's entirely possible that a presidential election would result in no candidate winning more than 50% of the popular vote, and there would need to be some way to conduct a run-off election. If this scenario had unfolded in the 1992 election, Bush would have won instead of Clinton.
surge 7y ago
We already have a problem with politicians getting the majority of their donations from people out of their district and even have very low approval ratings in their district. Something needs to be done to ensure all districts are equally represented and the representatives work for their constituents, not benefactors from out of state.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  The issue is that states aren't - really. There is no barrier so said division is arbitrary and unenforcable. Local has been pushing its siren song for a while when marketing but it is actually a reactionary countertrend to essentially everything else.
contravariant 7y ago
They'd still visit the places where they're most likely to gain votes. These places just won't be limited to a select few states any more.
CalRobert 7y ago
But that's where the people are. What's the problem?
rjmunro 7y ago
They would go to places where people are. Particularly the sort of people who might be amenable to changing their mind. It's true that because more people are in populated states, they would go to populated states more, but that's just fairness. See also https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
hyperbovine 7y ago
Isn’t that how a functioning democratic republic is supposed to work?
newshorts 7y ago
Should the not focus their attention on the centers with the highest population?
beepboopbeep 7y ago
...is that bad? Why shouldn't the most populated areas be priority?
specialist 7y ago
I predict a presidential popular vote would have a moderating effect. Meaning more voters would be targeted. With FPTP, each side tries to have the smallest winning coalition. This results in more competitive races. So every vote would matter. Said another way, our current unfair gerrymandering worsens partisanship. Said yet another, when my local city council went from at-large positions to districts based, so kinda the opposite of from electoral college to presidential popular vote, candidate platforms went from "appeal city wide" mush to "better appeal to my district". (A better moderator would be to change from FPTP to approval voting or ranked choice voting. But that's another thread.) -- But to your point, in practical terms, with modern get out the vote (GOTV) technology and strategies, most every voter is already targeted. They're certainly accounted for. As the de facto head of their parties, presidential candidates are expected to do well every where, to help with down ballot races. As an extreme example, HRC 2016 was criticized for running up her margin in "safe" areas. But that's expected (demanded) of national (and statewide) candidates by the locals.
screye 7y ago
If 40 times as many people stay in California, it makes sense that they would go there 40 times more often. Why should people living dense regions be punished for it ?
stevetursi 7y ago
What it shifts is advertising from expensive media markets with small geographical boundaries (NY, LA) to less expensive ones that have large boundaries (Kansas City, Raleigh.) It works out that, because of the large boundaries, the cost to reach each consumer is far lower. Moreover, I'd wager that the stumps that stump speeches occur on will go to more places with more concentrated populations - there are more butts within n square miles to put in seats, as well as the most-watched news media. My opinion is that both outcomes are preferable to stumps AND media going to half a dozen battleground states.

I'm not in favor of the electoral college, but wouldn't its elimination merely shift this problem to politicians only visiting the most poulated states (e.g. California) anyway?

zik 7y ago

At least then they'd be representing the concerns of a larger number of people which is arguably what they should be doing as representatives.

TylerE 7y ago

I think the whole “visiting” thing is overblown. We have TV and the Internet. This isn’t the 19th century when the only way the average American might EVER see or hear a President would be a short speech off the back of a train car.

jeremyjh 7y ago
That's right. Whats at stake is in which markets and demographics the ad spend goes.
- ajmurmann 7y ago
  Isn't the program also partially being tailored to those states?
mattnewton 7y ago
Visiting here is a proxy for overall campaign message initiatives, which includes physical visits, but also ad buy and even shaping the candidates message and platform to better appeal to the swing stage demographic. Arguably the last one is the biggest potential problem since it means some minority has an outside influence on candidates.
- freewilly1040 7y ago
  As an example of this imbalance shaping platforms see American policy on Cuba, where conservative policy is enduringly punitive appeal to Florida voters
- Taniwha 7y ago
  It's not just visiting, it's pork too, there's a reason why there's a net wealth transfer through taxes from those states that are not in play to those that are. A NPV would go some way to spread the federal spending around a little more fairly
maratd 7y ago
Nobody cares about visiting. They can craft their policies to entirely exclude or screw over states that aren't worth their time. For example, favor specific industries over others that are heavy in one state vs another. They'll do that anyway, but may think twice if they need to build a coalition of smaller states vs just winning the popular vote.
- hyperpape 7y ago
  This idea doesn’t seem obvious to me. The biggest states are: California Texas Florida New York Pennsylvania Ohio Illinois Georgia North Carolina Michigan Which major industry unites them? Which major industries are not represented? You have tech, finance, automakers, agriculture, tourism, and oil. Maybe not much mining and fishing? Probably something else, but these are very different states.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - DSMan195276 7y ago
    It's worth adding that those states aren't even close to as homogeneous as most tend to assume. Only 60% of California voted Democrat in 2016, and you have to assume the turnout for Republicans would be higher if it wasn't guaranteed that their vote (for president) was meaningless. With the current system, you can cater only to the populous parts of California and win the whole state, and that goes for most other states as well. With a popular vote, that ~30 to 40% of California is relevant again, along with significant chunks of other states. It's also worth noting the math really doesn't work out, the electoral college makes it easier to win the whole thing while carrying less states/votes (Which really shouldn't be surprising). With both the popular vote and the electoral college, you only have to take the 10 most populous states to win the whole thing. But the difference is that, with the current electoral college you generally only need to get 51% of the vote to win the whole state, which is significantly easier and turns states like California from a 60% to a 100%. With the popular vote, to actually win in that fashion you would have to take almost every vote in those states, which is practically impossible considering the diversity.
1337biz 7y ago
You can't discount Trump's stadium tours as an important part in his campaign strategy. It's essential for emotionalizing the base. Almost the same way a Spotify stream compares to a live arena concert. I would even go so far that offline events have in these digital times a much higher voter activation potential.
ianai 7y ago
Probably the biggest reason for physically visiting places is to get bigger donations from people and interest groups. Also to generate buzz that will land in the 24 hour media cycle.
rayiner 7y ago
I totally underestimated the importance of visiting until I went to Iowa earlier this month. (My wife went to high school and college there and we went back for the state fair and some campaign events.) It shattered my East-coast preconceptions about how elections work. Because of the caucus system,[1] you actually have to meet people in person to encourage them to advocate for you at the caucus. My wife got selfies with nearly every democratic candidate. I met the mayor of New York at a Buffalo Wild Wings. (He was just there for a snack, as were we.) You go to a diner with like 20 people and a presidential candidate has to sit there and field rambling questions from 80 year old ladies. It’s completely nuts, but the people who engage in the process (and they are completely ordinary people) are incredibly committed to their role. The other thing I came away with from the whole process is a newfound appreciation for the “who would I like to have a beer with” factor. The issues and policy proposals you read on the Internet don’t really matter—none of that stuff will ever get through Congress. Being able to look the person in the eye, and see how they carry themselves while shleping to half a dozen events every day—that really makes an impression. [1] In the Iowa Democratic caucuses, registered party members in a precinct get together, discuss the candidates, take a first round vote where some candidates are cut, discuss the candidates some more, and then take a final vote.
- rapind 7y ago
  "None of that stuff will get through Congress" I have a different opinion. Sanders and to a lesser extent Warren have created massive volunteer networks that do have a pretty big impact, like everywhere. Obama had that too, but it was dismantled when he took office (insanity). There's a good argument to say Obama would have been far more impactful had he kept it going. Sanders has no intention of shutting down his "revolution" (not my words) whether he does or doesn't get the nomination. There's going to be some serious pressure (like there already has) on congress in the years to come. I don't think the same ol' same ol' will continue much longer. I don't mean to be a fan boy, but it's pretty phenomenal what he / they have done since 2016, and it resonates with a lot of people. CNN and MSNBC don't talk about it too often, but it's very real. Don't take my word for it though. Easily researched.
  - tptacek 7y ago
heedlessly2 7y ago
No, at the end of the day. People are humans and are affected by face-to-face interactions. Communication via television and internet feels impersonal. When a candidate visits your city, they discuss how your local and state politics tie together. So candidates can personalize their speeches towards a specific region per visit. Some people might not care about this, but many others will

hyperpape 7y ago

The answer is probably complicated. Game theoretically, they’ll pay attention[0] to the places where their campaigning has the biggest marginal impact, but that doesn’t immediately tell us much. That will make big urban areas appealing. However, if you think there are diminishing returns, it should cause them to spread that attention more, avoiding the last month where they repeatedly visit the same state over and over again. [0] This might or might mean visiting those states.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> I'm not in favor of the electoral college, but wouldn't its elimination merely shift this problem to politicians only visiting the most poulated states (e.g. California) anyway? “Politicians”, no, it only effects Presidential (and Vice-Presidential) candidates. It has no direct effect on other politicians. Would it make them more likely to visit densely populated areas (where you can influence more poeple per unit time)? Yeah, probably. Right now, they focus on “swing states”, but within those states, on densely populated areas, for just that reason. But as long as there is a Senate, they'd be encouraged to visit small states (where a small number of voters determine a large share of power in the Senate, which can block both laws and Presidential appointments) for coattail effects. And they’d still be encouraged to spend efforts on campaigning in low-cost media markets where small money reaches lots of voters (even ones that would currently be neglected because the states aren't viewed as swingable), just probably not with personal visits as much, without some kind of broader free media exposure opportunities, because the candidates themselves can't be in more than one place at once.

cecilpl2 7y ago

Shouldn't politicians generally spend time and attention on the problems that affect the most people?

whenchamenia 7y ago
The region that gows all of our food affects us all. Just because you dont live in the midwest and population density is lower, does not make them less important.

delecti 7y ago

I've seen this pointed out, and absolutely do not see it as a problem. What's wrong with politicians paying more attention to the needs of more people? They're going to campaign somewhere, why should they pay more attention to Cleveland, Ohio (metro area population ~2m) than Los Angeles (city population 3m, metro population over 13m)?

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
The issue is more that everyone should get attention, and removing the electoral college & going straight to popular vote will honestly erode that- as others have noted, politicians will spend more time in the highest population areas and possibly not the highest need areas.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  > everyone should get attention I’m not entirely convinced presidential candidates share this belief.
- delecti 7y ago
  They already don't spend time equally. Currently they spend time where the expected votes are closest to 50:50. Why is that preferable to going to where there are the most undecided voters, which is what would happen?
- daveFNbuck 7y ago
  They'll spend more time campaigning in the areas with the most people who can be convinced to change their votes. This isn't necessarily going to be the highest population areas, as those areas tend to be solidly liberal. I don't know why the electoral college would be better at identifying high need areas than willingness to change your vote. Shouldn't people who need help be more likely to change their vote than to live in a purple state?
  - wh0knows 7y ago
    This isn't necessarily true. If a 10m pop area has a 70-30 split, it's still better to campaign there than a 5m pop area with a 50-50 split. In absolute numbers it's still 3 million supporters versus 2.5 million supporters.

pknopf 7y ago

Not if you make the votes proportional. There are a huge number of Republicans in California that would have just as much of a say than Florida/Ohio/etc.

zhoujianfu 7y ago

This site has good responses for that question here: https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.5 https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.5

ananonymoususer 7y ago

No, politicians would not need to visit California because the way in which the electoral college is being eliminated is by keeping it intact, but forcing the state electors to follow the federal trend instead of the local one. The result will be ALL of California's electors going "blue" regardless of how the individual people vote. If we figured out a way of actually eliminating the electoral college, then it's entirely possible that a presidential election would result in no candidate winning more than 50% of the popular vote, and there would need to be some way to conduct a run-off election. If this scenario had unfolded in the 1992 election, Bush would have won instead of Clinton.

surge 7y ago

We already have a problem with politicians getting the majority of their donations from people out of their district and even have very low approval ratings in their district. Something needs to be done to ensure all districts are equally represented and the representatives work for their constituents, not benefactors from out of state.

Nasrudith 7y ago
The issue is that states aren't - really. There is no barrier so said division is arbitrary and unenforcable. Local has been pushing its siren song for a while when marketing but it is actually a reactionary countertrend to essentially everything else.

contravariant 7y ago

They'd still visit the places where they're most likely to gain votes. These places just won't be limited to a select few states any more.

CalRobert 7y ago

But that's where the people are. What's the problem?

rjmunro 7y ago

They would go to places where people are. Particularly the sort of people who might be amenable to changing their mind. It's true that because more people are in populated states, they would go to populated states more, but that's just fairness. See also https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/

hyperbovine 7y ago

Isn’t that how a functioning democratic republic is supposed to work?

newshorts 7y ago

Should the not focus their attention on the centers with the highest population?

beepboopbeep 7y ago

...is that bad? Why shouldn't the most populated areas be priority?

specialist 7y ago

I predict a presidential popular vote would have a moderating effect. Meaning more voters would be targeted. With FPTP, each side tries to have the smallest winning coalition. This results in more competitive races. So every vote would matter. Said another way, our current unfair gerrymandering worsens partisanship. Said yet another, when my local city council went from at-large positions to districts based, so kinda the opposite of from electoral college to presidential popular vote, candidate platforms went from "appeal city wide" mush to "better appeal to my district". (A better moderator would be to change from FPTP to approval voting or ranked choice voting. But that's another thread.) -- But to your point, in practical terms, with modern get out the vote (GOTV) technology and strategies, most every voter is already targeted. They're certainly accounted for. As the de facto head of their parties, presidential candidates are expected to do well every where, to help with down ballot races. As an extreme example, HRC 2016 was criticized for running up her margin in "safe" areas. But that's expected (demanded) of national (and statewide) candidates by the locals.

screye 7y ago

If 40 times as many people stay in California, it makes sense that they would go there 40 times more often. Why should people living dense regions be punished for it ?

stevetursi 7y ago

What it shifts is advertising from expensive media markets with small geographical boundaries (NY, LA) to less expensive ones that have large boundaries (Kansas City, Raleigh.) It works out that, because of the large boundaries, the cost to reach each consumer is far lower. Moreover, I'd wager that the stumps that stump speeches occur on will go to more places with more concentrated populations - there are more butts within n square miles to put in seats, as well as the most-watched news media. My opinion is that both outcomes are preferable to stumps AND media going to half a dozen battleground states.