I think this point slides right past many people. The Electoral College and the 3/5ths compromise were the original American vote buying scheme. Southerners could literally buy slaves to increase their population and thus number of EC votes for president. They don’t do that anymore but does anyone remember the massive advertisement campaigns of Texas and Florida being cheaper places to live, work, and employ people in the 2010’s? They knew the next census was coming. They got a net gain of 4 more EC votes into their states by giving massive tax incentives to corporations and advertising cheap real estate. (It was 6 overall but 2 came from other red areas)

The EC was made for gaming the system, it’s still used to game the system, and it should be abolished. Without that marketing campaign PA wouldn’t have been the make or break state last night. A popular vote system is commonly derided as ignoring rural voters, but as we saw last night that’s not true. And any party that ignores such a large demographic would be setting itself up to be on the receiving end of another “southern strategy”.