As the smoke cleared after the November 5^th election, Donald Trump was declared the winner of a decisive victory having received 312 Electoral Votes with 270 needed to win. Trump won about 58 percent of the Electoral College, yet he won only 50.2 percent of the popular vote. That’s hardly decisive. He just squeaked through in terms of any perceived mandate. Why the 8 percent difference between the Electoral College and the Popular Vote? It’s because the Electoral College is skewed towards rural, Republican states. Republicans get more representation in the Electoral College than they would in the popular vote.

Trump’s election is hardly a mandate. But I also have a lot of other questions about this election.

First, why did 6,816,888 fewer people vote for the Republican and Democratic candidates? While Trump gained 1.6 million votes over his 2020 total, Kamala Harris did 8.4 million less that Biden did in 2020. There could be a number of reasons for this happening.

First, the 2024 campaigns totally focused on the seven swing states, the so-called purple states. It seemed that Trump, Vance, Harris and Walz and their surrogates were coming through Wisconsin almost by the hour. And it was being reported that a similar track record was being kept in the other six swing states. Well, that leaves 43 states almost entirely neglected in this presidential race unless they also had a crucial Senate seat or ballot question on the line. How does this project to the average voter that their vote doesn’t count if they live in one of these 43 states? How does this suppress the vote? How would this change if it was the popular vote — your vote and mine — that decided the presidential vote instead of the 538 individuals gathering in their state capitols casting votes that will be transmitted to the vice president and Congress on January 6^th? What difference would it make if each candidate had to compete in all 50 states plus Washington, D.C.? What would happen if everyone’s vote were enfranchised instead of written of because it really doesn’t land in the seven states up for competition?