Is the Popular Vote unwinnable for the GOP?

[Skill and Chance]

Was it unwinnable for Democrats after 1968? Certainly would've looked that way, but Carter cracked it, Dukakis had it until he blew with the tank op and failures to defend himself, and then 1992 saw a yuge shift

A slight improvement in Texas, max out Utah and Idaho, and recede the trend in Arizona ought to do it.

They aren't really big enough though.  The best short term bet for Republicans to run up the PV is to win Florida and Pennsylvania by 5 and have all of the Clinton 96-McCain 08 states vote like OK.

[Skill and Chance]

My guess is that no, but narrowly winning the popular vote would be equivalent to a medium sized victory (like Obama's victories), and winning the popular vote comfortably would mean a landslide.

So to tie the election, you wouldn't need a popular vote tie, but a D+2 or 3 popular vote

Keep in mind that EC vs. PV changes faster and more frequently than most are assuming.  Dems actually held the EC advantage from 2004-2012.  In 2008, Obama could have lost the PV as badly as Trump and still won the election. 

[Skill and Chance]

Can we end this myth now? Including Maine with Democrats just to make things easier, in the last election there were more small states voting Dem than small state voting GOP (looking at states with under 5 ECs). Everyone always wants to chide MT, WY, ND, SD, etc. and then omit VT, HI, RI, DE, etc. That goes along with the argument against having a Senate. Small Dem states are just as represented as small GOP states.

Fun fact: an Electoral College based on population alone produces exactly the same result in the 2016 election: 306-232.

(ME/NE CDs not shown here but accounted for)

Yes, it's never really been about the 3 EV states or the 2 "Senator" EVs in each state.  It's about EVs being allocated WTA and one candidate winning a bunch of medium-size (10-20 EV) states narrowly.  In the case of very large states, Texas cancelled out a lot of the Dem margin in California until recently. 

[Skill and Chance]

I think we are overlooking that Trump is from NY and NY has a strong pro-incumbent tendency to boot.  If the 2020 Dem doesn't also have NY ties like Clinton did, the state could trend pretty hard to Trump.  Trump only losing NY by say 12% in a close 2020 election vs. 22% in 2016 would be a game changer in terms of the PV.

[Skill and Chance]

I think we are overlooking that Trump is from NY and NY has a strong pro-incumbent tendency to boot.  If the 2020 Dem doesn't also have NY ties like Clinton did, the state could trend pretty hard to Trump.  Trump only losing NY by say 12% in a close 2020 election vs. 22% in 2016 would be a game changer in terms of the PV.

The last time we've had a Republican incumbent president run is 2004 and Bush got blown out by 18 points. All things considered, there doesn't seem to have been any advantage for Republicans.

I don't think Trump is going to come close to those numbers in New York. They don't seem to like him, going by his approvals.

Yes, but Bush went from losing NY by 25 in 2000 (doing even worse than Trump did) to losing it by 18 while he went from losing nationwide by 0.5 to winning by 2.5.  NY swung to him much harder than the nation as a whole.