politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Yeah, I know all of that. But about 5 million of that 7.61 million, for example, came from California. There was never a chance that California was going to Trump, so those 5 million extra votes were largely overkill votes that had no bearing on the overall election outcome. Those 5 million could have stayed home and it wouldn't have changed the outcome a single bit. The same goes, to a much lesser degree, with states like New York and Massachusetts, which are about as blue as you can get.
The same holds true for Trump, by the way. Trump won several southern states by double digits, leading to himself getting millions of overkill votes in states that were never in danger for him. A few million people in those states could have stayed home and the outcome wouldn't have changed a bit. But a few thousand more votes in a couple of key states could mean we'd be sitting in the midst of Trump's 2nd term while Biden goes down as a footnote who ran his campaign from his basement.
It's all about the crucial votes in key areas of swing states. Georgia is a prime example. A swing of just over 11,000 votes out of a pool of 5 million could have thrown the state to Trump. A 20,000 vote swing in Wisconsin could have turned Wisconsin red. Between the two of them alone, 31,000 votes could have sent two states and their 26 Electoral College votes to the GOP. The same could be said about half a dozen other states where Biden's wins were razor thin.
The popular vote is great for bragging rights, but in reality has no actual bearing on the outcome of the election due to the existence of the Electoral College. It's great for chest thumping, but winning by 7.6 million votes when 7 million of those votes came from heavily populated states that Biden was going to easily win anyway doesn't really say much. When you're talking about votes that actually have an impact on the results, Biden's victory was much, much narrower.
Look at it this way: Do you really think Biden is going to waste his time running up the score in California, or is he going to spend his time in swing states to try to at least maintain if not expand upon the narrow wins he got last time? He's going to spend his time in the swing states because running up the score in California by a few million votes will do exactly nothing for him, while ensuring he at least maintains the 11,000 votes he won by in Georgia will mean he doesn't lose 16 EC votes right off the top.
That was a lot of words to say what you already said, and I corrected. He didn't lose by a small margin, he lost by electoral votes. Saying he only won or lost by a few thousand votes is wildly inaccurate when it is electoral votes that matter