By: Savannah Smith | 12-04-2016 | News
Photo credit: The Goldwater

More Blows To Dems: Survey Says Support For Keeping Electoral College Increased

Still reeling from their crushing loss to Republican Donald Trump, shocked Democrats and their disappointed supporters are united in turning their ire on the Electoral College that gave Trump the victory. Now, their common call is to get rid of the Electoral College which they have deemed antiquated and instead they want to turn to popular votes in determining the presidential winner.

Democrats insist that they need not suffer from such an archaic system when popular votes indicate that their candidate Hillary Clinton has won, suggesting that it's the will of the people. They feel that winning the popular votes would also mean diminishing acceptance of the Electoral College by the American people.

A recent survey will disabuse such view by the Democrats. A new Gallup poll shows that 47% of Americans want to retain the Electoral College for determining the presidential election winner. More importantly, the rate gained a huge 12 points from 2012.

Those who support constitutional amendments to change the Electoral College to popular votes in determining the presidential winner stood at 49%, almost in statistical tie with those who favor retaining the Electoral College. But such support for popular votes has decreased given the dramatic increase in support for keeping the Electoral College.

The results are monumental because this is the first time in 49 years that a Gallup poll has found fewer than half of Americans want to let go of the Electoral College as basis for establishing the presidential winner.

Gallup has established the main reason for the increased public support for the Electoral College- it's because majority of Republicans now clearly want to retain the Electoral College.

In 2012, 54% of Republicans or those who are leaning towards Republicans support popular vote as the means to determining the presidential winner. Today, that support has dramatically decreased to only 19% support for the popular votes by Republicans or Republican-leaning Americans.

Gallup did not point it specifically but of course it's easy to assume that the change in Republicans' sentiments for the Electoral College and the popular votes can be greatly attributed to Trump's amazing win.

On the other hand, more Democrats or Democrats-leaning Americans support the popular votes as preferred mechanism in choosing the presidential winner with 81% compared to 69% in 2012.

Hillary's win in the popular votes is not so impressive after all, when one looks clearly. An analysis by Time magazine of the election results reveal that Trump has won more counties in the country with 2,622 compared to Hillary's 490. Much of Hillary's support came from few centralized areas like California where her margin of victory was 3.3 million votes, in New York where she got a margin of 1.5 million votes and in Cook County, Ill., home to Chicago, where she got a 1.1 million margin. Almost half of Hillary's Electoral College votes came from these three areas. Trump did not even bother to spend resources to campaign in these three Hillary bailiwick areas. On a spread out nation-wide scale, Trump clearly had the advantage.

Dejected Dems barking at the Electoral College as the culprit for their humiliating loss might get disappointed yet again with their wish to discard the Electoral College and replace it with popular votes to determine the next presidential winner in the 2020 election. It ain't coming.

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