In every U.S. presidential election, there’s often a lot of talk about the popular vote—who won it, by how much, and whether it reflects the will of the people. But here’s the truth: the popular vote is essentially a red herring. It’s like saying, "Sure, the Patriots scored 48 points, but the Rams had more rushing yards." Interesting, maybe—but ultimately, it doesn't determine the winner. In presidential elections, the game is decided by the Electoral College, not the national popular vote.
Focusing on the popular vote is like saying, "The Yankees scored 7 runs, but the Orioles had more hits, so they’re really the better team." Just as in sports, where runs or points determine the winner, the U.S. presidential election is decided by electoral votes, not the popular vote.
What’s worse is the argument that the popular vote reflects the “will of the people” being denied by the Electoral College. The truth is, we don’t have any evidence of what the will of the people would be in a popular vote election because that’s not the system we use. People vote according to the rules of the Electoral College, and voting behavior is shaped by that system. If we want to measure the will of the people in a popular vote, we’d have to conduct an election where every individual vote counts toward the final result. Until that happens, we can’t claim the popular vote is being suppressed, because we don’t even know what the numbers would look like under that system.
Campaigns are designed to win electoral votes, not the popular vote. Candidates concentrate their resources on key battleground states, knowing that’s where the election will be decided. If the popular vote determined the winner, strategies would shift, and campaigns would focus on populous regions.
Voting patterns would also change dramatically. Many Republicans in blue states like California, Illinois, and New York, and Democrats in red states like South Carolina, Utah, Missouri, and Tennessee often stay home because they know the electoral outcome in their state is a foregone conclusion. If the national popular vote decided the presidency, millions more people across the political spectrum would likely vote. But in our current system, it’s impossible to say what a national popular vote result would look like.
In the end, bringing up the popular vote as if it reveals something about the "will of the people" is not a serious or intelligent argument. It’s counting the score of a game that has never been played.