3. Does either system favor either party or any region?
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Only if the weather does too. A county-by-county study performed by the Oklahoma Weather Lab at the University of Oklahoma, indicated that sunnier weather, would have flipped electoral votes for Al Gore in Florida, in 2000, and Bill Clinton, in North Carolina, in 1992.
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A shift of 59,393 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have elected John Kerry despite President Bush’s nationwide lead of over 3,000,000 votes (he won the popular vote by carrying the nation's smallest 38 states.) A shift of 214,393 votes in 2012 would have elected Mitt Romney despite President Obama’s nationwide lead of almost 5,000,000 votes.
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The country also only narrowly averted a split between the popular vote and the Electoral College majority in 1960, 1968, 1976, 1992 as well. It's just a matter of time before the popular vote and the Electoral College diverge again, with the Republicans on the losing side.
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Even states as densely populated as California or New York couldn’t dominate the outcome in a National Popular Vote election . The 100 largest cities in the country only contain 1/6 of the population, nowhere near enough to win an election. Although metro centers do vote mainly Democrat, they are balanced out by the 1/6 of the nation that lives in rural areas and votes mainly Republican. Add those regions to the 2/3 of the nation living in the suburbs, split almost evenly between the two major parties, and no one group dominates. In a NPV election, the voice of smaller states like Utah is as strong as any other’s.