Refuting the #1 myth
“But the Electoral College protects small states.”
It doesn’t. Here’s the receipts.
This is the most repeated — and most easily disproved — argument against a national popular vote. The data is not a matter of opinion.
Fact #1: Candidates ignore small states
If the Electoral College “protected” small states, candidates would campaign there. They don’t. They campaign in a tiny handful of large swing states.
| 2020 General Election | Campaign Events | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, Minnesota, New Hampshire | ~204 | ~96% |
| The other 38 states + DC | ~8 | ~4% |
| Wyoming, Vermont, the Dakotas, Alaska, Delaware, Rhode Island, Montana, Idaho, Hawaii, West Virginia, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Maine, Texas… | Effectively zero attention. | |
Source: National Popular Vote, Inc., tracking of 2020 general-election campaign events between the conventions and Election Day.
Fact #2: “Small” isn’t the magic word. “Swing” is.
New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) gets visited constantly. Vermont (3 EVs), right next door, gets ignored completely. The difference isn’t size — it’s competitiveness.
Of the 13 smallest states, only New Hampshire has been treated as competitive in modern presidential elections. The other 12 small states — from Wyoming to Delaware — receive essentially zero campaign attention, zero policy attention, and zero ad spending.
Fact #3: Your vote for President in a non-swing state is already a throwaway
If you live in California and vote Republican, your vote for President doesn’t count. If you live in Wyoming and vote Democrat, your vote for President doesn’t count. The state’s electors will go to the same party they always go to.
Tens of millions of Americans live in states whose electoral votes are completely predictable. To the presidential campaigns, those voters might as well not exist. [5]
Fact #4: The Electoral College helps large swing states, not small states
Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona — these aren’t small. They’re some of the largest states in the country. They get all the attention because they’re close. The Electoral College isn’t protecting Wyoming. It’s rewarding whichever 6–8 large states happen to be 50/50 this decade.
Fact #5: Under a popular vote, every Wyoming vote is worth exactly one Wyoming vote
Right now, candidates have zero reason to set foot in Cheyenne, Boise, Burlington, Pierre, Bismarck, Juneau, Wilmington, Providence, Helena, or Honolulu. Under a national popular vote, every single one of those voters is worth chasing — because every vote, everywhere, adds to the same total.
Fact #6: Rural America gets ignored, too
Rural California Republicans, rural New York Republicans, rural Illinois Republicans — tens of millions of small-town conservatives whose votes are flatly cancelled by their state going blue. Rural Mississippi Democrats and rural Alabama Democrats are cancelled the other way. A national popular vote is the only system in which rural America — all of rural America, in every state — counts equally.
The patriotic bottom line
If you believe America is a nation of equal citizens, then a Wyoming rancher and a Brooklyn nurse should have the exact same say in who runs the country. Not more. Not less. One person, one vote.
That’s not a partisan position. That’s the founding promise.