The Electoral College and the Future of this nation

[Gergar12]

Not likely to happen, because it doesn't take effect unless half the electoral votes worth of states agree to it, and you can't get that number of electoral votes without having to get states to agree for whom it would functionally just be handing over any influence they have over the Presidency in exchange for nothing.

Same reason they aren't trying to pursue this as a Constitutional Amendment - 3/4 of states will never agree, in no small part because more than 3/4 of states would have less influence of the Presidential election than a single city as a consequence.

...and assuming it ever goes into effect, there will immediately be a lawsuit arguing it's an interstate compact that was not approved by Congress and is thus unconstitutional. Probably won't stick, but it will be tried.

I disagree, democratic controlled states and most importantly their lobbyist, and political absentees aspirees will want this. They want cushy jobs in the Federal government, and they will force state parties to do this or face funding cuts. Most importantly this future proofs currently democratic states many of whom are trending towards republican for some reason according to a paper I read, one example being New York, and many democratic states like it to always pick the popular vote winner which will always be the democrats.

While New York won't become republican anytime soon, it could in the future.

 

[Eacaraxe]

What would it mean for America if a Democrat had to go into the Midwest and make their case, instead of having it be so red that it just isn't worth their time?

Ending the electoral college wouldn't change that; in fact, it'd make the problem exponentially worse. Regional campaigning still means targeted advertising, and regardless of the transition to online communication and away from local broadcasting, old rules for cost per vote and voter outreach would still apply albeit by different calculi. Ergo, campaign and social media managers would target campaign ads to areas of highest pop density nationally to minimize CPV and maximize outreach, meaning that basically the entirety of the country between the Rockies and Appalachians would become flyover country.

And, you'd get further consolidation of campaign funding towards national parties as opposed to state parties (which is a distressingly major problem for Democrats right now), and distribution towards ad agencies specializing in coastal markets as opposed to basically anywhere else, which will not yield particularly positive outcomes for Democrats in down-ballot elections even though winning presidential races might be marginally more feasible.

EDIT: Personally, my view is the electoral college should be reformed such that the House's portion of EV's be awarded proportionally by state, and the Senate's portion be awarded FPTP by state (but honestly, the entire government needs to be reformed into a parliamentary federal system with PR). Let's compare CA, TX, FL, and NY to see how that might play out: in TX, 21 EV's would have gone to Trump and 17 to Biden; in CA, 36 EV's to Biden and 19 to Trump; in FL, 16 EV's to Trump and 13 to Biden; in NY, 17 to Biden and 12 to Trump. Meanwhile in lower pop states like IA, 4 EV's would have gone to Trump and 2 to Biden, or in NM, 4 to Biden and 1 to Trump.

EDIT 2, obsessive-compulsive boogaloo: IN4B "that would just help Republicans, they'd take more EV's from blue states than Democrats would get in red states!". I ran the maths on the 2020 election on an Excel spreadsheet, and awarding "House" votes proportionally by state would have still seen Biden winning, 274-260, not accounting for rounding errors in the spreadsheet because I couldn't be arsed to find them and it wouldn't have changed the outcome either way.