The Electoral College is by far the most ridiculous institution in the democratic world. It was a last-minute compromise created by exhausted delegates at the Constitutional Convention, and the political forces that benefited from it continue to retroactively justify it. It remained deeply unpopular for a decade. For the second time this century, the Electoral College has handed the presidency to a candidate who received fewer votes than his opponent, with predictably disastrous policy consequences that we will continue to feel decades later. .
And because of the Electoral College, the entire 2024 election will be held in roughly seven states in the 50-state country and Washington, DC. These states together make up less than 20 percent of America’s population, yet for the past 18 months, they have dominated the national conversation in ways the rest of us could only dream of. Now it looks like this. California, a Democratic stronghold, has more Republicans than Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada combined, but has the misfortune of more or less permanently trailing Democrats in statewide elections, so who knows? I don’t care what they say or think. For a generation.
Political science research shows that presidents direct more resources and attention to states that need approval in the next election. In a 2015 study of federal spending from 1984 to 2008, political scientists Douglas Criner and Andrew Reeves found that “in election years, counties in battleground states that support the president tend to be more found that federal spending would increase by billions of dollars. where are they? ” That means not everyone in swing states will benefit, only the counties that are most supportive of the president’s party. In addition to federal subsidies, these dynamics also appear to apply to awarding contracts with the federal government, giving companies located in landslide and battleground states far more leverage, according to a 2023 analysis by a group of Hong Kong-based researchers. It is said that they have received many orders.
That also applies to catastrophes. That should be on everyone’s minds this week as Hurricane Milton hits the west coast of Florida. In a related article, Criner and Reeves analyze disaster declarations during the same period and find that counties in states that support the president’s party or in swing states are “more likely to receive a disaster declaration than counties in other states. It was discovered that the Conclusions shared by other researchers.
david farris
The Democratic Party desperately needs to change its course on this losing strategy.
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This is not surprising given what we have endured in the Trump era. Just this week, two former senior advisers to President Trump said that in 2018, the president told his staff to find out how many votes he had received in California wildfire-affected areas before approving disaster relief. He made it clear that he was giving instructions. This is an ongoing brain poisoning of the Electoral College. Perhaps more infamously, he quarreled with the mayor of San Juan in 2017 instead of directing the government to address the severe crisis that Hurricane Maria brought to Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria ultimately killed thousands of Americans on the island. He then called for an end to federal relief spending in the region.
And while the Biden administration appears to be handling the effects of this season’s hurricanes well, what’s the media focus on the almost unfathomable devastation in the mountains of western North Carolina, a battleground state? This is in stark contrast to the almost complete lack of attention paid to what is happening. With deep red Tennessee just over the state line, essential analysis has been completed on how the hurricane’s aftermath will affect the outcome in the Tar Heel State. No one asks, no one cares about Helen’s electoral influence in Tennessee. This kind of coverage gap is an almost inevitable result of battleground state mania, and we shouldn’t be surprised if it permeates policymaking.
Like almost everything else about our politics, this bizarre distortion of our political life by the Electoral College is because Americans have been divided into “red” and “blue” states by its decisions. , which has worsened dramatically over the course of this century. Created by the station on election night in 2000. That was the night the network chose states won by Republican George W. Bush as red and states won by Democrat Al Gore as blue. This is an arbitrary data visualization scheme that now serves as an inescapable template for our politics and identity.
It wasn’t always like this. Throughout most of the 20th century, voters were far more willing to switch their votes between presidential elections. For example, in 1968, a whopping 30 states switched control from the Democratic Party in 1964 to the Republican Party. After Republican Richard Nixon won a landslide national victory in 1972, 22 states flipped to Democrats in 1976. In the late 20th century, it was common for more than 20 percent of voters to switch their vote between presidential cycles, according to the Center for Politics. . In 2020, only five states flipped from 2016, and nationally fewer than 6 percent of voters changed their party affiliation between elections. In 2016, there were six states.
Since 1992, a total of 193 electors in 18 states and Washington, D.C., have voted for Democratic candidates in every presidential election. For Republicans, this would give them 103 electoral votes in 12 states. In other words, more than half of the available electorate went to the same party in eight consecutive presidential cycles.
This dramatic reduction in the battleground map has allowed campaigns to focus more power than ever before on a small number of states that receive the vast majority of advertising, staff, and campaign visitors. National parties have effectively given up the rest, at least when it comes to presidential politics.
Another way to look at this is this: In the 2000 election, 13 states were decided by less than five points, and in 2004 all of them were strong targets for both candidates. In 2020, that number was just eight, and Republicans won by a landslide in the midterm elections. Florida has been largely removed from the list of purple states. A New York Times/Siena College poll on Tuesday showed Trump with a 13-point lead in the state, perhaps ending Democrats’ dreams of a comeback in the state. As a result, the number of battleground states has been reduced to just seven states.
Young men are moving in a completely different direction than young women. It could completely turn society upside down. Supreme Court Takes Up Nuclear Waste Case The phrases the right uses to explain why it’s okay for President Trump to make stuff up is so incredibly outlandish Can someone please send this clown to Mars next month?
One of the many empty arguments that supporters of the Electoral College use to justify this absurd situation is that battleground states change over time and that essentially no one will is about getting a chance. However, as of 2012, five of the top 10 states are on the 2024 battleground state list. In fact, with the exception of Florida, the 2024 battleground map is nearly identical to 2020. That means California, Texas, Florida, and New York, the four most populous states in the country, have approximately 109 million people. This year there is virtually no conflict between the two people. That could change soon if Texas continues its blue trend, but right now the Electoral College is locking out more people than ever before from meaningful input into what happens this year.
It’s completely exhausting! If I need to hear one more focus group about undecided voters in Pennsylvania, or read another campaign journalist’s tired Pennsylvania dinner article, I’ll throw myself into Lake Michigan intend to. When I hear presidential candidates spend precious time in national debates pledging undying allegiance to a policy that matters to some voters in one battleground state: hydraulic fracturing, I hear hundreds of thousands of stories. I think I’ll try. I encouraged my closest colleagues in Illinois to vote Republican for one cycle so they would have some consideration next time. And to my friends on the battlefield who are tired of the constant political noise and attention, all I can say is this: Just as you are tired of the constant political noise and attention, we are also tired of you. I’m tired of it.” us.
