Was talking about this with a co worker yesterday who is a Dem, but not a far left Dem. He brought up the EC as not being "fair" as it's an advantage to the Republicans.
I asked him what states he considered as "toss up" states, and he listed GA, NC, AZ, NV, WI, MI, and PA. I agree with him, although I would put NC squarely in the red, and MI squarely in the blue. I get they can go the other way, but for the most part they don't deviate from the norm. But even if we call them "toss ups" and just use the other 43 states, the blue states have 226 EC votes compared to 219 for the red states. That essentially makes it a scenario where the candidates have to win somewhere between 3 and 4 of those other states(depending on which ones) to get to 270. As I asked him, "how can it be unfair when even you agree that they walk into the day with a lead of 7 in the EC?" Of course, he didn't have an answer, because at the end of the day he realized that it wasn't "unfair" unless you believe that the Presidency should be decided strictly by the popular vote.
I asked him what states he considered as "toss up" states, and he listed GA, NC, AZ, NV, WI, MI, and PA. I agree with him, although I would put NC squarely in the red, and MI squarely in the blue. I get they can go the other way, but for the most part they don't deviate from the norm. But even if we call them "toss ups" and just use the other 43 states, the blue states have 226 EC votes compared to 219 for the red states. That essentially makes it a scenario where the candidates have to win somewhere between 3 and 4 of those other states(depending on which ones) to get to 270. As I asked him, "how can it be unfair when even you agree that they walk into the day with a lead of 7 in the EC?" Of course, he didn't have an answer, because at the end of the day he realized that it wasn't "unfair" unless you believe that the Presidency should be decided strictly by the popular vote.
