Data Is Beautiful

People don’t vote, states vote. Semi proportionally to number of people, but it isn’t linear. This means that California gets 50 some odd votes and they all go to the democrats most of the time but Wyoming gets 3 (the minimum) despite it being smaller than many cities in population and they all go to the republicans basically every time. That’s why swing states are a thing that exists and matters. Back in the 00s Florida and Ohio were in the sweet spot of big and could go either way (insert joke about my girlfriend) but now they’re both considered firmly Republican states, meanwhile Wisconsin lost its Republican status and now swings as did Arizona. When people talk about texas possibly becoming a swing state as a big deal this is why, it doesn’t matter who gets the popular vote, texas is so big and serves as a counterweight to California and New York for the republicans that if the democrats win Texas without the republicans picking up several states that they never get, all of the swing states, or one of the two big hitters of the Dems then there’s basically no chance for them to win.