The nationwide vote count doesn't matter, it's just a talking point for the media. The national popular vote has meant nothing for 168 years. Our Founding Fathers — with amazing forethought — created the electoral college for a reason. They wanted the president to be elected by a wide spread of states — not just the highly populated cities, a.k.a the elites. Without the electoral college, candidates would only campaign in Philadelphia, New York and LA.
Sure. But then the electoral college reduces the voting power of those in larger states, and increases the voting power of those in smaller states. That's not necessarily fair.
But then here's the issue with giving small states a starting value: candidates can't satisfy all those small states for a minimal payoff in electoral votes. They still campaign mostly in the more populous states. Sorry to disappoint. Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, etc. are visited.
Moreover, candidates would visit swing states more since states that are usually in their favor wouldn't matter as much (since 50.01% or 99.99% of the popular vote still gives you the same amount of electoral votes) - the problem with 51% attack.
And you think the presidential candidates would only campaign in the largest cities? Philadelphia, New York, and LA only add up to
New York City: 8,406,000 (2013)
Los Angeles: 3,884,000 (2013)
Philadelphia: 1,553,000 (2013)
= 13.843 million people.
The population of the USA at that point was 316.5 million. But, we need to take the population of eligible voters. Let's use the 2012 year.
235.248 million people.
Those cities make up 5.88% of the population. Do you seriously think that a presidential campaign would only worry about them?
Even if you campaign only in the top 50 cities (which is a LOT) that population still only adds up to 46,795,639. And if we consider the voting power to be ~2/3 of that population, you're left with 31.2 million which is about 12.5% of the total population that can vote. All the electoral college does is actually force candidates to visit swing states (so only a few states). The division is a sort of gerrymandering.
