A strange way to pick a president
The presidential election is not a national contest, and the most popular candidate doesn’t always win. Instead, a handful of swing voters in a handful of swing states decides for everyone
One week to go. The countdown to the US presidential election on 5 November has begun. For months, former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have been locked in a roller coaster ride to see who will become the world’s most powerful leader.
But strangely, in this only-in-America presidential election process, some voters count more than others. Unlike the presidents of France, Brazil and elsewhere, who are directly elected by a national popular vote, the US president is indirectly elected. Using an antiquated 18th-century method called the Electoral College, the election is conducted as separate contests in each of the 50 individual states, plus the nation’s capital, District of Columbia.
What’s odd about this process is that a candidate who wins more votes nationwide can lose to an opponent who wins more of the individual states. In 2016, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump nationwide by nearly 3 million votes, yet she still lost the election.
But it gets even stranger. Most states are so lopsided – either tilting strongly in favor of a Democrat or Republican – that pollsters and experts can already tell you which candidate will win 43 out of the 50 states. Only seven battleground states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada – will decide the winner. What is supposed to be a national contest to pick the country’s chief executive will be decided by a handful of states with a combined population of about 60 million out of a total US population of 330 million.
This is an oligarchy of states. Some of them, like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin regularly appear on this list of royalty. Georgia, Arizona and Nevada are relative newcomers. Previously Florida and Ohio were infamously on the list. These states have a lot more electoral punch than the other 43 states, and between elections they get preferred treatment when it comes to congressional favors and pork.
They also get far more visits by the presidential candidates, and far more media advertising than all the other states combined. Pennsylvania alone is being hit by a media cyclone, with 22% of all ad buys, $362 million, for this presidential campaign. Michigan is not far behind at $260 million.
In these swing states, the campaign battles are fierce. People sitting peacefully at home watching TV are being carpet bombed over the airwaves with TV, radio and social media ads. In the other 43 states, there is no campaigning at all, other than when the candidates show up to raise money in wealthy enclaves.
The tyranny of swing voters in swing states
But here’s where the process gets really strange. Within each of these battleground states, most voters already know if they are going to vote Trump or Harris. So the winner in each of these seven swing states will be decided by a handful of undecided voters – what are called “swing voters.”
In this truly oddball system, the number of Americans with an effective vote that actually decides who will become president is vanishingly small – maybe 5% of the nation’s population. That’s because a few states – and a few groups of voters in those states—count more than others.
These almighty swing voters are what Anthony Downs, the political economist and author of the groundbreaking The Economic Theory of Democracy, once called the baffleds. One campaign consultant described swing voters as those voters who “by definition are those least informed and interested in politics...You motivate these people with fear, or 30-second sound bites that are simplified to make someone who is not interested or not informed take action. If you can’t tell them in eight words or less why you are the better choice, you’re probably going to lose.”
Conversely, another category of swing voters that can have untoward influence over politics are the opposite of Downs’ baffleds -- those zealots who care passionately about a single issue or cause. Parties and candidates try to mobilize these voters as their base support, cleverly triaging their messaging between base and swing voters, micro-targeting different appeals to different audiences.
Now, smash the two together -- swing voters in swing states -- and you arrive at the utter pointlessness and absurdity of our “winner take all” Electoral College system. A handful of muddle-headed, indecisive and least-informed voters -- those who are “best motivated by fear” and “30-second sound bites” and “need to be convinced in eight words or less”— or alternatively those rabidly obsessed with a single issue — stumbling to the polls in a handful of close battleground states will determine which candidate wins the presidency. These voters influence national policy beyond the weight their minority numbers should warrant. Election after election, all the billions of dollars raised, all the strategies deployed, have been predicated on this dynamic of our “winner take all” Electoral College system.
The political candidates and their highly paid consultants strategize how to target voters and slice and dice the electorate in ways that help them sway these swing voters. It results in very divisive campaigning, because it is often effective to pit one group against the other.
It’s not just the presidential election that is distorted by these “winner take all” dynamics. In a legislature closely divided between Democrats and Republicans -- like the US House of Representatives is today -- most House district seats are lopsided in favor of one party over another. Only about 10% of swing districts are up for grabs by either party, and those winners will determine which party will win a majority of seats and control the legislature. The same is true in the US Senate. Those same baffled swing voters in swing districts will decide which party will win control of the Congress.
Who are the swing voters this year?
So what groups of swing voters will be most important this year?
Gun rights proponents. Voters in favor of extreme gun rights are very influential in six of the battleground states. While labor unions usually support the Democratic candidate, the gun issue is particularly touchy among a significant minority of union members, such as auto workers in Michigan and blue collar workers in Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Led by well-funded advocacy groups like the National Rifle Association, pro-gun rights supporters have been able to exert great influence in presidential and congressional elections. The power of these swing voters is the major reason why the US lags other civilized democracies in enacting sensible gun safety laws.
Trump Democrats. Another group of swing voters is known as Trump Democrats. Hundreds of counties in various states that had voted for Barack Obama twice, suddenly flipped and voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Most of them will vote for Trump again this year, as they are attracted to his brand of authoritarian paternalism in which Trump acts like the Big Daddy who can fix all their ills. Those are votes that the Democrats are trying to win back.
Certain Black and Latino voters? Compared to past elections, two new groups of voters are suddenly more in the “undecided” category – Black and Latino voters, especially the males. These voters have always been the most reliable Democratic voters, and most will still vote for Kamala Harris. However, 92% of Black voters supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, and 90% supported Joe Biden in 2020. In the latest polls, only 78% are supporting Harris -- even though she is partly Black.
Similarly with Latinos. 68% supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 but only 56% are supporting Harris. That leakage among Black and Latino voters could contribute to Harris losing any of the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. Many of these disaffected voters feel they have not benefited from Democrat’s policies, even as high inflation has eaten into their paychecks. The Harris campaign is now making a concerted effort to woo back these voters, so those numbers will likely rise before election day. But Harris is having to spend time and money to win over these voters that she had hoped would automatically be in her column.
Jewish and Muslim voters in battleground states
One of the more interesting clashes over swing voters is a byproduct of the war in the Middle East. Despite small numbers of Jewish voters in the US – about 2.4% – they turn out in high numbers, most often for Democrats, and are concentrated in a few influential areas. About 78% of Jewish voters voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but Kamala Harris has a narrow lead among Jewish voters, with only 53% favoring her over Trump.
Pennsylvania has about 300,000 voting-age Jews in a state Joe Biden won by roughly 80,000 votes. Biden won Arizona by about 10,500 votes, Georgia by 12,000 votes and Wisconsin by 21,000 votes, with Jewish populations of 124,000, 141,000 and 33,000 respectively.
But Jewish influence is not just about counting votes. Since US candidates must privately finance their elections, large campaign contributions from wealthy Jewish donors to both Democratic and Republican candidates allows them to play a disproportionately influential role in the bankrolling of campaigns, and after the election lobbying for certain policies.
A newer horizon among religious-based swing voters is the growing influence of Muslim-American voters in several battleground states. As the merciless bombing of Palestinian and Lebanese homes and lives has continued, funded and largely unrestrained by the Biden administration, Muslim-American voters are threatening to withhold their votes from Democrats. Their numbers are small but mighty and could certainly make a difference.
In Arizona, which Biden won by only 10,500 votes, there are an estimated 110,00 Muslim adherents. Similarly in Georgia (12,000 vote margin and 123,000 Muslim adherents), Wisconsin (21,000 vote margin and 69,000 Muslim adherents) and Michigan (150,000 vote margin and 242,000 Muslim adherents). Muslim-Americans voted overwhelmingly (69%) for Biden in the 2020 presidential election. But alarmingly, a recent survey found Harris with only 41% support among Arab American voters, less than Trump’s 42%.
Each of these swing voter “groups of passion” are a key part of the complicated landscape that will decide the winners in the upcoming presidential and congressional elections. The truth is, in the US system, if you are the right group of swing voters and live in the right state or district, and the election is close enough, you can bring powerful politicians to their knees.
National Popular Vote for president
There is a better way to elect the US President – it’s called the National Popular Vote. That’s a plan that would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It has been enacted into law by 17 states with 209 electoral votes, and it only needs an additional 61 electoral votes to go into effect.
Let’s hope that by the next presidential election we have in place an electoral method in which all voters’ votes count equally, no matter where they live.
Steven Hill @StevenHill1776
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The popular vote movement is a ploy to destroy us. It is an attack on our form of government, a Republic, that any freedom loving individual can recognize.
They tryto turn us into a democracy, where majority rules, where 51 beats 49, it is where anything can be enacted by a simple vote, I.e., lock downs, masking, slavery, anything. That is why the dems allow us us to be overrun with untested, illegal forgieners (the dem party fights in court to give them voting rights).
This is an example of the Hate America crowd uses the media. A very muddled collection of false assumptions, substituting facts with false naritives, projected motovations, name calling, demeaning any who dissagree with your thimblerigging dialectic.
To wit,
We are a Democracy.
False, We are a Republic.
The Electoral College is unfair and only a popular vote is fair.
This does not explain why something is fair. This takes some enlightenment and a little history and English grammar.
"United States of America"
That is the name of this, our country.
What does that tell us?
Let's break it down.
"States" being the defined noun,
"United" an adjective defining the noun, and
"of America" a propsitional phrase, used as a modifier of the noun "States".
In otherwords the States united to form a "democratic republic". The states existed before the Union.
Independent States, with the required Republican form of government, each State having unique commerce and issues needing to be addressed and each having "equal" representation in the new government in the form of two (2) elected Senators (initially appointed prior to 17th Amendment and 2 Electors 12th Admendent). Hence the term "States Rights".
Each State had a fair and equal voice on the make up of the Federal government. The States represented the people who in turn selected by popular vote those to represent them in the Federal government.
To remove the Electoral College and go to a popular vote is contrary to everything this country was founded on, and fought over, it demeans its very name and is demeaning to all those live in and who died to make this country what it is, a place of opportunity. It is why the rest of the world wants to come here.
Don't keep trying to break that which is not broken.
AFF