"Popular" Republicans have always won the electoral vote.

[dmmidmi]

I am not convinced that the electoral college should be
abolished. There is a downside, as many have pointed out,
that Democrats would focus on large cities and ignore
the rest of the country. This may be true and if
it is it isn't necessarily a good thing.
On the other hand there are good arguments to abolish it
(or at least change it radically), as well...

If this is really the argument, I never want to hear Republicans spew another argument against programs that aim to benefit underrepresented minorities (affirmative action, etc.) ever again. Because that's what the Electoral College currently represents.

[dmmidmi]

I could rephrase:

"More on big cities and less on sparse populations"

That doesn't change the original argument.

The spirit of the argument is this: should the electoral college be abolished, the winner of each election would largely be chosen by people who live in metropolitan areas and inner cities, because there are more people there. The interests of people who live in rural and frontier areas would be lost, because there are fewer of them.

Hence, the system is intended to insure that the interests of a minority (people who live in rural and frontier areas) aren't drowned out, because so many people live in cities and suburbs.

It is a way of leveling the playing field, to protect a minority population.

See where I'm going with this?