How would campaigns be run with no Electoral College?

[BM]

The myth propagated by dumb people is that campaigns would focus solely on big cities like NYC and LA even though urban populations account for what, 20-25% of the nation? I'm just making that number up but it can't be as much as people think.

But what would the real strategies be? It'd be much more exciting to see Democrats campaigning in Texas and Republicans campaigning in New York than the same old Ohio and Florida visits.

[DC Al Fine]

I think you'd see a lot of Republican visits to R-leaning suburbs in blue states. Democrats would start trying to appeal more to rural working poor voters I think.

[Smid]

Probably a greater focus on value-for-money media markets than presently.

Even more likely, however, would be a focus on down-ballot races, since getting out the vote, and swinging votes to the party, benefits multiple candidates for the party, so probably more campaigning in states (or regions within states) with marginal congressional districts, and states with a tight senate race.

[5280]

It would give both candidates to campaign as many places as possible, but they would have to spend more time in the big cities since they will gain more votes in high populated urban areas.  I'm sure the VP can attend rallies in the rural towns of Nebraska while the main candidate is in the suburbs.

Secondly, I want the GOP to attend in more urban areas like NYC while the democrats go to Utah.

[Person Man]

There could be more campagins using trains and the interstate than flying. Someone won't simply fly from Cleveland to Denver. They will campaign by driving down I-70/I-80, campaigning in Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, the Quad, Des Moines, Omaha, Cheyenne and well, you get the idea.

[Joe Biden 2020]

Oklahoma and Utah would suddenly be back in play!

[Mr. Morden]

The myth propagated by dumb people is that campaigns would focus solely on big cities like NYC and LA even though urban populations account for what, 20-25% of the nation? I'm just making that number up but it can't be as much as people think.

But what would the real strategies be? It'd be much more exciting to see Democrats campaigning in Texas and Republicans campaigning in New York than the same old Ohio and Florida visits.

Would Democrats really spend that much time campaigning in the most Republican areas and vice versa?  Or would it be more cost effective to spend most of your time trying to drive up the turnout in your own base regions?

[Sol]

The myth propagated by dumb people is that campaigns would focus solely on big cities like NYC and LA even though urban populations account for what, 20-25% of the nation? I'm just making that number up but it can't be as much as people think.

But what would the real strategies be? It'd be much more exciting to see Democrats campaigning in Texas and Republicans campaigning in New York than the same old Ohio and Florida visits.

Would Democrats really spend that much time campaigning in the most Republican areas and vice versa?  Or would it be more cost effective to spend most of your time trying to drive up the turnout in your own base regions?

Every state has swing regions, and it would make sense to visit those.

[DC Al Fine]

The myth propagated by dumb people is that campaigns would focus solely on big cities like NYC and LA even though urban populations account for what, 20-25% of the nation? I'm just making that number up but it can't be as much as people think.

But what would the real strategies be? It'd be much more exciting to see Democrats campaigning in Texas and Republicans campaigning in New York than the same old Ohio and Florida visits.

Would Democrats really spend that much time campaigning in the most Republican areas and vice versa?  Or would it be more cost effective to spend most of your time trying to drive up the turnout in your own base regions?

Every state has swing regions, and it would make sense to visit those.

Sure, but think of the campaign. A Democrat in DC or Republican in Utah has less need to vote because they already know how their state is voting. In a close race, the election is decided by several thousand swing voters in FL, VA, OH etc. Now you have campaigns where every vote counts, so there's way more incentive to hit up your base like crazy than trying to pick up swing voters who aren't that dedicated to the process anyway.

[BM]

It would certainly provide a lot of trial and error in the first few campaigns. It'd be crazy.

[LastVoter]

Like campaigns are run in other countries.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Democrats go more populist to win in Appalachia and flyover country, Republicans focus more on suburban/exurban areas in blue states. Certainly an emphasis on inner-city turnout from Democrats in Oakland, Harlem, Detroit, etc. All the big states would be lean or swingy, so Republicans would do better in CA and Democrats would surge in TX. Maybe a map like this after a decade or so of PV elections:

[Ogre Mage]

It would dramatically restructure the way Presidential campaigns distribute television advertising.  Though the content of ads in well-populated base areas would be a lot different from the ads in swing areas. 

I wonder if campaigns might emphasize turning out the base over appealing to moderate/independent voters.  After all, base voters are reliable while independents are often fickle and have low interest and information about politics. 

[Skill and Chance]

Democrats go more populist to win in Appalachia and flyover country, Republicans focus more on suburban/exurban areas in blue states. Certainly an emphasis on inner-city turnout from Democrats in Oakland, Harlem, Detroit, etc. All the big states would be lean or swingy, so Republicans would do better in CA and Democrats would surge in TX. Maybe a map like this after a decade or so of PV elections:

Interesting.  That has a very 1990's feel to it, when the 3-way allowed Clinton to really go all out for Appalachia/MS Valley while still holding the fort on the coasts.  The electoral college is keeping the D's more libertarian and the R's more populist than they otherwise would be.

[nolesfan2011]

Candidates have a lot more rallies in big cities, regardless of their swing to get the base out (New York, Boston, LA area and Silicon Valley,  Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago), a lot of camping in the large states.. CA/NY/TX

GOP campaigns in California and the west coast and the northeast, Dems campaign more in the south, OH/FL/WI/MI/PA//CO still remain pretty high on the importance list.  Smaller states like New Hampshire and possibly Nevada and New Mexico and stuff get dropped off the importance list though

and the biggest thing is except most of the ad buys and the money dumping to be in the 100 biggest media markets.. regardless of whether that area is red or blue.


 I don't see how people think rural states would all the sudden become important though.. it is cheaper and easier to campaign in single counties in states like Florida, New York and California that have more voters than almost the entire state of Iowa or West Virginia or Kansas.

Some things change but not that much.. and flyover country still is

It would dramatically restructure the way Presidential campaigns distribute television advertising.  Though the content of ads in well-populated base areas would be a lot different from the ads in swing areas. 

I wonder if campaigns might emphasize turning out the base over appealing to moderate/independent voters.  After all, base voters are reliable while independents are often fickle and have low interest and information about politics. 

[Del Tachi]

Campaigns would become much more "turn-out" based rather than "swing voter" based.

Campaigns would probably put more resources into states with easier voter registration regulations, such as states that allow same-day voting and registration. This allows campaigns to jack-up their PV totals quite easily.   

[ag]

Turnout, turnout, turnout. And, unless elections start being run by the federal government, there would be interesting legal strategies. How long till California makes voting a condition for renewing your driver's license?

[Mister Mets]

It would change the calculus for Veep selections, and questions about who is more electable.

And the entire nation would be subjected to political ads the way the swing states were.

[Nichlemn]

Like campaigns are run in other countries.

This. And gubernatorial elections. And every almost other single-winner election ever. I don't know why people think of popular vote elections as some kind of unknowable hypothetical.

[BM]

Because the US is a very large country in both population and area, not to mention the diversity, so it wouldn't be as easy as running a gubernatorial campaign or a national campaign in smaller countries in Europe or whatever. Campaign strategy would change dramatically and obviously be unique in some ways.

[memphis]

NYC and LA combined account for about 4% of the US population. And they're both full of non-citizens, who are ineligible to vote. Maybe 2-3% of the electorate. But if you mean all metro areas, most people already live in them. And that's as true in the swing states as in the nation. There's no reason a popular vote method would change that. And TV ads get less important every year. It's all about targeted microdemographics that have very little to do with state boundaries.

[izixs]

The first few campaigns would be a bit wonky and would probably go to who ever adapted the quickest. And those winning campaigns would set the precedent for how things would work (for a while at least) in the post-EC years.

So the question is then: How does one win in a popular vote contest? Indeed, base turn out becomes important, but not just in Texas, California, Florida, and New York. Early in the campaign season you could probably expect to see campaign activity (through probably few candidate visits) in pretty much every part of the country. Getting a few thousand extra votes for the dems in Idaho by getting on the air early there isn't going to be abandoned. If the election is razor close, who ever is smart about nabbing the low hanging fruit in 'enemy' territory the best will probably win.

Major rallies will be centered around major cities, but its laughable that both candidates will sit in LA and NY all campaign season. You'll see Republicans in Philly and Democrats in Salt Lake City. Yes there will probably be fewer candidate small town rallies, but that's because no longer are a few states the swing voting block but the entire country, and the entire country just has to many small towns to make such a strategy effective. Now, there will likely be many surrogate sponsored rallies, local politicians looking to get better known to their communities and help things up the ticket, and some of that might even be semi-spontanious. I'd imagine campaigns would produce a number of local rally videos where the presidential candidate talks to the audience. Overall though, this empowers local politicians, as it makes them important in the bigger scope of things. Which might mean the federal government is more responsive to local needs in the long term, which might not be a bad thing.

Finally, there might be an effort to have more presidential debates or to radically change the kind of silly system we have right now for them. General election debates could perhaps be setup so that they take place where both candidates have campaigned the least, to help increase candidate access. Of course this means at least one debate in Fairbanks Alaska which could be amusing.

[pbrower2a]

1. The narrow focus on 'swing states' would vanish.

Just look at 2012. Neither Georgia not Minnesota was ever really in contention even if they drifted into being decided by margins of less than 8%.

• Georgia                   0    16   3,900,050   2   1   304,861   7.82%
  North Carolina           0    15   4,494,570   2   1   93,288   2.08%
  Florida                 29   0   8,490,159   1   2   74,309   0.88%
  Ohio                       18   0   5,350,140   1   2   107,259   2.00%
  Virginia                 13   0   3,843,744   1   2   143,360   3.73%
  Pennsylvania         20   0   5,647,224   1   2   283,730   5.02%
  Colorado                   9   0   2,564,959   1   2   138,584   5.40%
  New Hampshire   4   0      710,928   1   2   39,587   5.57%
  Iowa                   6   0   1,581,752   1   2   91,773   5.80%
  Nevada                    6   0   1,014,918   1   2   67,806   6.68%
  Wisconsin                 10   0   3,071,434   1   2   210,019   6.84%
  Minnesota         10   0   2,936,561   1   2   225,942   7.69%

When only 130 of 538 electoral votes matter, 80% of the population is either a given or off-limits.  That is a pity. Populous Orange County and the Central Valley of California (greater Sacramento excluded) did not matter in this election even if they voted for Mitt Romney. Greater Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and the counties along the Mexican Border from El Paso to Brownsville did not matter even if they voted for Barack Obama. Florida was split down the middle.

If America had a truly national Presidential campaign, then we would have seen Barack Obama campaigning in Dallas, El Paso, Austin, San Antonio and Houston and Mitt Romney campaigning in Fresno, Anaheim, and Bakersfield. President Obama would have been campaigning in the Black Belt of the South -- and Mitt Romney would have been campaigning in Staten Island, which split about as evenly as did Florida.

To be sure the current polarization of the States has become more severe than it was in 1980. Would it surprise you to find that Barack Obama won a larger percentage of the vote in 2008 (50.86%) than Ronald Reagan got in 1980 (50.75%)? To be sure, independent and third-party nominees got nearly 8% of the popular vote in 1980 and it is hard to discern whether such was largely protest votes by people disgusted with the low achievements of Jimmy Carter yet scared of Reagan...

• Illinois           26   0   4,749,721   1   2   3   376,636   7.93%
  Pennsylvania   27   0   4,561,501   1   2   3   324,332   7.11%
  Missouri           12   0   2,099,824   1   2   3   142,999   6.81%
  Michigan           21   0   3,909,725   1   2   3   253,693   6.49%
  Vermont           3   0   213,207           1   2   3   12,707   5.96%
  Louisiana           10   0   1,548,591   1   2   3   84,400   5.45%
  Wisconsin           11   0   2,273,221   1   2   3   107,261   4.72%
  Maine           4   0   523,011           1   2   3   17,548   3.36%
  New York       41   0   6,201,959   1   2   3   165,459   2.67%
  Delaware           3   0   235,668           1   2   3   5,498   2.33%
  North Carolina   13   0   1,855,833   1   2   3   39,383   2.12%
  South Carolina   8   0   890,083           1   2   3   13,647   1.53%
  Kentucky           9   0   1,294,627   1   2   3   18,857   1.46%
  Mississippi   7   0   892,620       1   2   3   11,808   1.32%
  Alabama       9   0   1,341,929   1   2   3   17,462   1.30%
  Arkansas       6   0   837,582           1   2   3   5,123   0.61%
  Tennessee   10   0   1,617,616   1   2   3   4,710   0.29%
  Massachusetts   14   0   2,524,298   1   2   3   3,829   0.15%
  Hawaii           0   4   303,287           2   1   3   5,767   1.90%
  Maryland           0   10   1,540,496   2   1   3   45,555   2.96%
  Minnesota   0   10   2,051,953   2   1   3   80,933   3.94%
  West Virginia   0   6   737,715        2   1   3   33,256   4.51% 

In a way the Presidential election of 1980 was closer than the election of 2012; fully 271 electoral votes were decided by margins less than 8% in contrast to 130 in 2012. Add the Anderson vote to the Carter vote in 1980, and even if Reagan wins the election is no blow-out. Ronald Reagan won by large margins in about half of all states, but by comparatively narrow margins in lots of states.   In 2012 Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both won big and lost big in a raft of states.

2. Political polarization between the states would likely abate. Really a corollary of 2. Because of the paucity of polarization between states in 1980 Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter had to run nationwide campaigns to have a chance. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama did not contest Staten Island with a huge number of votes but no relevance to the electoral vote but contested New Hampshire with four electoral votes all season but only about three times as many votes altogether.

3. Areas that vote 'wrong' by the standard of their state (like Orange County and most of the Central Valley in California and most of the large cities and the counties around the Mexican border in Texas) get ignored. If the electoral vote were split in this way (two to the winner of the plurality in a state, the rest split proportionately by the proportion of the popular vote with third-party and independent votes incapable of getting a whole electoral vote by getting a fraction large enough to merit one whole electoral vote ignored, and fractions less than 1% assigned to the winner of the plurality - this would still involve the Electoral College, but it would get different results. We would see this for the four most populous states:

California -- Obama 33, Romney 22
Texas --      Obama 14,  Romney 24
Florida --     Obama 16, Romney 13 
New York -- Obama 20, Romney   9

................... Obama 83, Romney 67

Reality    --  Obama 113, Romney 38


The three states after Texas with the most electoral votes that went for Romney, and Ohio as a sort of balance:

Ohio        -- Obama 11,  Romney   7
Georgia   -- Obama  6,   Romney 10
N. Carolina  Obama  6,  Romney   9
Arizona   --  Obama  4,  Romney   8

.................. Obama 140, Romney 64

Reality     -- Obama 131, Romney  77
 
San Antonio would matter. Fresno would matter.  Such would be better than the laser-focused (and ultimately undemocratic) Presidential campaigns that we now have.

... Could President Obama have won by such rules? He would have adjusted his strategies. He would have had a get-out-the-vote campaign in Texas' big cities and of course the Black Belt of the South. He would have tried to run up the vote in Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City, Louisville, Memphis, and Indianapolis.  Give President Obama some credit for having the right style of campaign for the time.

4. States would get hurt for having rules that keep voting numbers down.

5. A travesty like that of 2000 would have required blatant and undeniable election fraud -- like stuffing the ballot boxes.

6. Polarization between the states would likely diminish. Think of all the secession talk related to a President that many Americans despise. People in states that vote against a President would have to confront the fact that there are areas that would not want to secede. Disrespect for political minorities is essential to the tyranny of the majority. Note well that our Constitutional system is intended to prevent the tyranny of a majority. 

7. Winning the States and DC would matter. The two at-large electoral votes for all fifty states and DC would altogether account for 102 electoral votes.  In 1984, Reagan would have had an insurmountable 88-14 advantage in the Electoral College for winning 44 states alone. In 2012 President Obama would have had only a 54-48 advantage that could in theory have easily been countered.