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So if you've only got two parties, with (for the sake of argument) relatively comparable levels of competence, resources, and attractiveness of message, how is the popular vote unfair?
What if high-concentration population centers produce a split, like Cook County and the surrounding collar counties usually do?
Oh wait, I forgot, Cook County is the evil home of Machine Politics, which only Democrats engage in, so let's just talk about that, rather than focus on the FACT that the GOP has lost its previous iron grip on its traditional strongholds in Lake, Kane, Will, DuPage, and McHenry counties. In 2012, Romney lost them all save McHenry. He lost Cook County by about a million, and lost the state by nearly that same margin. (Romney actually narrowly won "the rest of Illinois," despite his terrible performance in the collar counties.) In 2000, GWBush lost Illinois to Kerry, but easily carried all 5 collar counties and won non-Cook Illinois by about a half-million votes.
Now, you can argue that Romney had no business trying to swing votes in suburban and downstate IL, but the simple fact is that the GOP lost a lot of ground in the state by ignoring those areas, dropping multiple key House districts in the process. Chicago hasn't changed (much), but the surrounding area has. Lake County, where I live, has moved from intensely conservative to palpably progressive over the past 20 years. The swing has been even more shocking in DuPage, which typically carried a 65% GOP vote in presidential elections 1960-1988.
I would estimate that the GOP has let about a half-million votes of margin slip off the table in Illinois, mostly in suburban Chicago, basically because they judged the state was not in play electorally. Heck, there are actually plenty of Republicans in suburban Cook, but there's no effort to get them out and reduce the Dem advantage to manageable levels. This is particularly amusing/short-sighted in light of historical context.
Wiki:
I would suggest that, should there be a popular election of the president, there would be a big upside to the GOP working to reclaim those previously guaranteed votes.
I would further suggest that, in our era of increasingly targeted messaging, the traditional geographic advantages of parsing votes by population density would actually be reduced in a non-EC world. Work to split the urban/suburban vote and a decent plurality of rural voters could swing an election.
What if high-concentration population centers produce a split, like Cook County and the surrounding collar counties usually do?
Oh wait, I forgot, Cook County is the evil home of Machine Politics, which only Democrats engage in, so let's just talk about that, rather than focus on the FACT that the GOP has lost its previous iron grip on its traditional strongholds in Lake, Kane, Will, DuPage, and McHenry counties. In 2012, Romney lost them all save McHenry. He lost Cook County by about a million, and lost the state by nearly that same margin. (Romney actually narrowly won "the rest of Illinois," despite his terrible performance in the collar counties.) In 2000, GWBush lost Illinois to Kerry, but easily carried all 5 collar counties and won non-Cook Illinois by about a half-million votes.
Now, you can argue that Romney had no business trying to swing votes in suburban and downstate IL, but the simple fact is that the GOP lost a lot of ground in the state by ignoring those areas, dropping multiple key House districts in the process. Chicago hasn't changed (much), but the surrounding area has. Lake County, where I live, has moved from intensely conservative to palpably progressive over the past 20 years. The swing has been even more shocking in DuPage, which typically carried a 65% GOP vote in presidential elections 1960-1988.
I would estimate that the GOP has let about a half-million votes of margin slip off the table in Illinois, mostly in suburban Chicago, basically because they judged the state was not in play electorally. Heck, there are actually plenty of Republicans in suburban Cook, but there's no effort to get them out and reduce the Dem advantage to manageable levels. This is particularly amusing/short-sighted in light of historical context.
Wiki:
From 1920 until 1972, the state was carried by the victor of presidential elections - 14 elections. In fact, Illinois was long seen as a national bellwether, supporting the winner in every election in the 20th Century except for 1916 and 1976. By contrast, Illinois has trended more toward the Democratic party and such, has voted (Dem) in the last six elections. In 2000, George W. Bush became the first Republican to win the presidency without carrying Illinois.
I would further suggest that, in our era of increasingly targeted messaging, the traditional geographic advantages of parsing votes by population density would actually be reduced in a non-EC world. Work to split the urban/suburban vote and a decent plurality of rural voters could swing an election.
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