Third parties vis a vis the electoral college.

[°Leprechaun]

In the past I thought that eliminating the electoral college would hurt third parties, but I may change my mind.
The reason was that in "safe" states a person is free to "vote their conscience".

However, more and more in seems that the Democratic candidate for POTUS is almost guaranteed to win the popular vote unless and until the electorate swings more to the GOP, which seems unlikely unless the GOP moves away from the radical right, which may not happen for a while. Therefore if the electoral college was eliminated those living in swing states might be more likely to "vote their conscience".

I do not know. What do you think?

FPTP seems a bad way to run elections, since more and more neither party is winning majorities in swing states and swing districts.

Will the GOP continue to move right and will the Democratic party move in either direction or stay where it is?

I think that a significant number of people are tired of binary choices, but third parties have failed to provide an alternative except for only about 1-3% of the electorate. As small as that is, it often prevents anyone from getting a majority. The 2020 Senate races are a good example.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Both parties will move to the left, the Democrats a lot more so.  The GOP will thus look like it's getting further and further right by comparison.

[Del Tachi]

In the absence of the electoral college, you would probably see both major parties moderate.  Since the winner-take-all system means it is only the votes you win in the states you win that matter, this allows both parties to largely ignore the moderating influence of their opposite state partisans.  I imagine a GOP more concerned about suburban voters in OC and Santa Clarita would become more moderate as would a national Democratic Party worried about maxing out it's margins in the MS/AL Black Belt, for example.

I don't really see third parties doing any better under an NPV unless there's some two-tier, France-like runoff process that turns the first round into an ideological primary.

[OSR stands with Israel]

In the absence of the electoral college, you would probably see both major parties moderate.  Since the winner-take-all system means it is only the votes you win in the states you win that matter, this allows both parties to largely ignore the moderating influence their opposite state partisans.  I imagine a GOP more conerned about surburban voters in OC and Santa Clarita would become more moderate as would a national Democratic Party worried about maxing-out it's magins in the MS/AL Black Belt, for example.

I don't really see third parties doing any better under a NPV unless there's some two-tier, France-like runoff process that turns the first round into an ideological primary.

California republicans in no way are more moderate than the national Republican Party and in many ways are why the GOP is as right wing as it is . Yes Arnold was governor but that was due to the way the recall system work as there is very little chance he’d have won a primary in 2002 or 2006 if he ran . The California GOP is probably to the right of the national gop on immigration and a whole bunch of other issues and that is why they have so much trouble winning there .

I’d say most of the Midwestern gop parties are more moderate than the California GOP as well .

[PSOL]

There’s little reason why under a popular vote system, we’d see in some areas behave more like the Canadian party system. However, under current ballot access laws, that remains impossible.

[emailking]

FPTP is definitely a terrible way to do it, but popular vote with FPTP I think is less bad than electoral vote with FPTP in each state.

It might hurt them but it doesn't really matter because with FPTP they have no chance anyway other than in rare fluky situations.

[Damocles]

Proportional representation and a viable multi-party electoral system, to provide for truly national elections, is what’s needed. Until we ditch the paradigm of all-or-nothing single-member districts, our Congress’ composition won’t reflect the political realities of what Americans actually want at the ballot box.

To wit, Sen. Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) both nominally exist in the same party, and yet occupy wildly different factions within that party. Arguably, it would be simpler, and easier, to create a system which incentivizes multiple smaller, disciplined, cohesive parties, and governance through consensus and coalition-building.

Majoritarian political systems are toxic in a multicultural society. This is even reflected in the language of “red states” and “blue states”. Yet, plenty of conservative-leaning voters call California their home, and the same is true of liberal-leaning voters in Texas.

[Damocles]

In the absence of the electoral college, you would probably see both major parties moderate.  Since the winner-take-all system means it is only the votes you win in the states you win that matter, this allows both parties to largely ignore the moderating influence of their opposite state partisans.  I imagine a GOP more concerned about suburban voters in OC and Santa Clarita would become more moderate as would a national Democratic Party worried about maxing out it's margins in the MS/AL Black Belt, for example.

I don't really see third parties doing any better under an NPV unless there's some two-tier, France-like runoff process that turns the first round into an ideological primary.

The French system suffers from having to run two massive elections in a short sequence, one right after the other. It also maintains the toxic dynamic of majoritarianism that forces voters to choose between the lesser of two evils, rather than positive advocacy for the party they actually want to take power. Both aspects make it inferior to a proper proportional representation system.