Hypothetical Contest Results

• Let's say you played a game of stroke play golf. Lowest 18 hole score wins. After the game was over, it was decided that rather than stroke play, the officials would judge the winner by match play (number of holes won) instead.
• Or you were a baseball team that was going to play seven game series. But after the series was over, it was determined by the umpire that the winner would be the team with the most overall runs, not the team who won the most games. 
• Or you were a hockey team who was playing a hockey game. At the end of the game, the officials decided that the team that had the most shots on goal would prevail, rather than the team that scored the most goals. 

In all of these cases, it would be argued that changing the rules after the contest was over, would be unfair. Obviously these arguments would be correct. 

More to the point, in all of these cases, wouldn't the participants actually map out a different strategy? Wouldn't you play stroke play and match play differently? Wouldn't you play differently if there was a seven game series for total runs, rather than a race to four game wins? If the rules stated that the hockey teams were judged on shots on goals, rather than actual goals, clearly they may play the game differently.

Same can certainly be true for a Presidential election. If the rules state that you win the election by winning individual states (or districts) and the Electoral College Votes that come with those wins, then that is how you map out your strategy. If the rules were that the candidate who won the popular national vote, won the contest, then you would certainly use a different strategy. 

If not for the Electoral College, would candidates really spend time in places like Iowa, Nevada, or New Hampshire? Nope. Probably wouldn't spend much time in Wisconsin, Colorado, or Minnesota, either. They would likely advertise heavy in population centers, and each candidate might spend most of their time providing red meat for their own base. A Democrat spending time in deep blue areas of the country, while the Republican spending time in deep red areas. 

Now we can argue all day long about which of these scenarios actually serves a better purpose. My argument is in favor of the electoral college, just because I do believe having several competitive states with different sets of demographics keeps candidates more honest than having both candidates preach to their choir. But either way, the reality is that you cannot judge a hypothetical regarding a popular vote victory, when the rules of the contest require a strategy to win individual battleground states. 

Those were the rules. Both candidates knew those rule. Both candidates planned their strategy around those rules. The only fair way to judge the outcome of this particular contest is to see how the two candidates fared according to the rules in place. The results were simple 306-232 for Donald Trump. That's a significant victory. 

There was no other contest played. There was no strategy by either candidate to win a popular vote. Trying to create new rules that neither candidate was prepared for or either candidate worked towards is an exercise in irrelevance and red herring. Had it been a popular vote election, then both candidates would have played a different strategy and we would have had different popular vote results. But there is little reason to believe that we would have seen a different winner at the end of the day.