I think you’re missing something — margin of the popular vote. There’s no way around this: campaiging by radical leftists (you know, the ones who control the Democrat Party?) in primarily the 30 biggest cities (read: MSMAs) of the Megalopolis and the Left Coast could produce an undeniable lead in the popular vote. All socialists would have to do is keep it reasonably close in the red-state areas. Once the unwashed masses realize they can vote themselves the purse-strings (bread and circuses), the game is over.
I’m also a little suspicious of NPV partisans who were upset by Al-Gore’s loss even though he won the popular vote — because if you are not mortified by the specter of a Gore Presidency, you are probably a loon, or DUmmy.
The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as obscurely far down as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States.
Suburbs and exurbs often vote Republican.
The margins generated by the nation’s largest states are hardly overwhelming in relation to the 122,000,000 votes cast nationally. Among the 11 most populous states, the highest margins were the following seven non-battleground states:
* Texas — 1,691,267 Republican
* New York — 1,192,436 Democratic
* Georgia — 544,634 Republican
* North Carolina — 426,778 Republican
* Illinois — 513,342 Democratic
* California — 1,023,560 Democratic
* New Jersey — 211,826 Democratic
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004 — larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections. A shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 Million votes.