Besides, if the criteria was the Popular Vote, Trump runs a completely different campaign, and probably would still have won the popular vote in that case. He spent nothing on California, because he knew it was a lost cause and not worth it.
Exactly right. Trump did not bother to campaign in N.Y., California, and several other deep blue States because there was no point to it. Had the election been based on popular vote instead of electoral college, Trump's campaign would have been completely different. And that brings up a different point.
Analysts were curious why Hillary focused her campaign on inner city urban areas, New York City, Los Angles, Chicago, New Orleans, while ignoring more rural regional areas in the midwest. This is odd because everybody knew Clinton would win the large urban cities even without campaigning there.
The consensus came down to arrogance. That is, Clinton and her team were so absolutely confident that they would win the electoral college and the election, that they were focusing on urban areas specifically to increase the popular vote. The idea was that winning the election was a foregone outcome, but winning wasn't enough. Hillary didn't want to just win, she wanted an overwhelming landslide. So, by concentrating 'get out the vote' in urban areas, she would ensure that she had a popular vote mandate as well as winning the election. Obviously, this hubris came back on her and slapped her in the face.
But this election did highlight the need for an electoral college. Without it, all Presidents would be "chosen" by a handful of major primarily deep blue cities, and 95% of America would essentially be cut out of the election. Hillary keeps claiming that she 'won the popular vote'. But in reality all she 'won' was the votes in a dozen or so major Liberal urban areas, while over 90% of the rest of the country rejected her.
When you see an election results map on MSNBC or CNN and others, they will show an entire State as colored blue, without noting that the only people in that State who voted for Hillary were in one or two large cities, while the rest of the State voted Red.
Hillary's claim that she 'won the popular vote', when the specific analysis is known, is the best argument for the electoral college that has been presented since the founding of our county.