Jon Hall of the American Thinker points out some interesting facts about 2016 electoral math.
In January of 2017, the Federal Election Commission reported that in the 2016 general election Mrs. Clinton received 65,853,516 votes and Mr. Trump received 62,984,825 votes. Clinton therefore beat Trump by 2,868,691 popular votes. …
… What’s interesting is that Clinton beat Trump by more votes in California than she did nationwide, precisely 1,401,287 more votes. Though Trump’s claim that illegal voting threw the popular vote to Clinton is sheer speculation, we can say that if we exclude California that Trump did in fact win the popular vote in the rest of the nation, and by exactly 1,401,287 votes.
Because Trump didn’t get any electoral votes in California and New York, when we subtract the electoral votes of those two states, Clinton won just 143 electoral votes in the rest of the nation while Trump’s electoral total remains unchanged at 304. In the Electoral College, which is what we use to elect our presidents, Trump beats Clinton by more than 2-to-1 when California and New York are excluded. Even if the votes of the seven faithless electors were given to Clinton, Trump would still have trounced Clinton by more than 2-1 in the 48 states of “real America.” …
… Some progressives think we should junk the Electoral College and elect presidents with the popular vote. Other progressives think we should rejigger the College and allocate its votes in a way that is closer to the popular vote. But if one believes in federalism, the above data argues just the opposite. We can’t have the preferences of two populous coastal states being imposed on the other 48 states merely because they have some tiny majority. That’s especially so when those two states are so very different from the rest of the country. Let California have its tent cities, its free healthcare for illegal aliens, and its San Francisco values, but leave us “hicks” in the heartland alone.
