A meeting of the 2016 campaign managers at Harvard turned tense

“I think it’s groundless to talk about fake news, the fake news is that somehow the popular vote is more important than the Electoral College vote now”.

The goal is to not only minimize Hillary’s unprecedented victory in the popular vote – no winning presidential candidate in American history has lost the popular vote by as much as Trump has – but to minimize Democratic voters overall. It has politicized discussion of the question. In fact, it was a committee compromise to end the last contentious fight in the Constitutional Convention.

Clinton’s loss is the fifth time in US history a candidate who won the popular vote did not assume the presidency. The election of multiple executives was even considered. The real election takes place December 19, when the 538 Electors cast their ballots – for anyone they want. That’s why we have the Electoral College. It was not until the election of 1856 that the right to vote was extended to men who offered taxi services – i.e., had a horse and cab to transport people. It’s a further reason to keep the Electoral College. If we abolished the Electoral College, we would be hard pressed to justify continuance of the U. S. Senate.

In Washington state alone, Guerra is the third electoral college member to become a “faithless elector”.

The 1952 Supreme Court case Ray v. Blair confirmed the constitutionality of requiring that electors pledge to vote for a certain candidate; however, this is not the same as requiring that electors actually vote for that candidate. That year, Ross Perot, running under the Independent Party banner, became the most successful third-party contender since Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, receiving almost 19 percent of the popular vote.

The only presidential victor since the Civil War who did worse was Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican who lost the popular vote to Samuel Tilden in 1876 and won the electoral tally only after Republicans challenged the results in four states, all of which were finally decided by a Republican-dominated electoral commission on party-line votes. In a close election, this could be enough to bargain with the two major parties for his votes.

“I watched ABC and other networks religiously”, Conway said.

The most recent numbers I see have Clinton at @ 65.5 million, Trump at about 62.8 million and others @ 7 million.

As Harvard’s Nicco Mele regularly reminded the political operatives, journalists and students in the audience, the event was meant to take down “a first draft of history and we are trying to capture what happened here for generations to come”. Ted Cruz’s campaign admitted they feared the “full Trump” – their term for when the NY mogul was shown simultaneously on all three cable news networks.

Then there is the concern over recounts. And yet they went, they voted the way voters have always voted: on things that affect them, not just things that offend them.