President Donald J. Trump visits the border area of Otay Mesa, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019, a neighborhood along the Mexican border in San Diego, Calif. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
With President Trump’s victory in the Electoral College, despite losing the popular vote, his unhappy opponents were looking for any means by which to delegitimize his victory. Taking shots at the constitutionally created and time tested Electoral College became their go-to strategy. Without it, they maintain, the president would have had no chance.
Despite the impossibility of projecting the differences in voter behavior if there were no Electoral College, John W. York makes a great case for why the Electoral College is best for America. He writes at The Daily Signal:
All electoral systems, including the Electoral College, enshrined in the Constitution create incentives to home in on a limited set of places that are most likely to determine the outcome.
The question is not whether it is better for presidents and presidential candidates to care about, and travel to, the entire country or just a portion of it. The question is whether it is better for presidential hopefuls to focus on winning over swing states (as they do under the Electoral College) or big cities (as they would if a nationwide popular election was instituted).
Given these two realistic alternatives, the Electoral College system is far healthier for the country as a whole.
Given the great diversity of interests spread across our country, a system that forces candidates to compete in every region makes sense. Those who seek to become the leader of these United States should not be encouraged to ignore “fly-over country” to concentrate on currying favor among a handful of mega-cities.
This first appeared in The Daily Signal here.
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