President Donald Trump talks on the phone aboard Air Force One during a flight to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address a joint gathering of House and Senate Republicans, Thursday, January 26, 2017. This was the President’s first trip aboard Air Force One. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
At The American Conservative, Fred Lucas examines the recent Democrat attacks on the Electoral College and finds them unconvincing. What’s more, Lucas informs readers that the Electoral College is working exactly as it was intended to. He writes (abridged):
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has claimed that the Electoral College must be abolished because it was a product of slavery—which it of course isn’t.
In saying so, she echoed Hillary Clinton, the last presidential candidate to come out on the losing end of a popular-electoral vote split, who has also called for scrapping the time-tested method of electing presidents.
Clinton beat Trump by 4.3 million votes in California, the only state where she had a larger margin of victory in 2016, with 61.5 percent of the vote, than Obama had in 2012, with 60 percent.
Registered Democrats in California increased by 1.1 million in the last eight years, while Republican registration dropped by 400,000. Also, the general election Senate race had two Democratic candidates, which further depressed Republican turnout.
Without California, Trump would have won the popular vote by 1.4 million, according to an analysis by Investor’s Business Daily.
Clinton’s average margin of victory over Trump in blue states was 53.5 percent. Had this been her margin in California, the race would have been a popular vote dead heat. Yet in 2012, a race without California would have still seen Obama defeat Romney by 2 million votes.
Thus did the Electoral College work as its creators intended.
Read more here.
