this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

Depends how loose your definition of half is, I guess. Trump got 46.8% of the popular vote in 2020 vs Biden’s 51.3%.

2016: Trump 41.1% (still won) vs Clinton 48.2%. 2012: Obama 51.1% (winner) vs Romney 47.2%. 2008: Obama 52.9% (winner) vs McCain 45.7%. 2004: Bush 50.7% (winner) vs Kerry 48.3%. 2000: Bush 47.9% (still won) vs Gore 48.4%. 1996: Clinton 49.2% (winner) vs Dole 40.7% vs Perot 8.4%. 1992: Clinton 43% (winner) vs Bush 37.4% vs Perot 18.9%. 1988: Bush 53.4% (winner) vs Dukakis 45.6%. And that's as far as I could be bothered to go back.

With the exception of Bush in 2004, every Republican president since 1988 won only because of the electoral college. See the problem?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago

It is still bonkers that 40% of the people vote for him. No matter how bad first past the post voting, electoral collage or party polarization is, if you can convince 40% of the people to vote for this man as president, that's a problem with the voter base, not the EC.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I'm aware of the history. The EC should go. I also don't need to miss the context of the discussion to make that point.

…And to think this guy has half the vote. What a place we live in. I wish we cared more about education. If people were smarter, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Going by current polling, the two are statistically tied, with a few percentage points still going to RFK Jr and some undecideds. GP is correct to say "this guy has a half the vote", and this would be true with or without the EC. If we had a population that wasn't bending over backwards to justify sending a demented narcissist into the White House, the EC would not even be close to an issue this election.