Why Your Presidential Vote Doesn't Matter Very Much: An Appeal to Be Normal
Those who tend to be the loudest of the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" crowd seem to also forget how Presidential electoral politics in this country actually works, and why
As we careen headfirst into what is shaping up to be the worst election in decades, I’m here to get (slightly) ahead of the browbeating. I am asking you all very nicely to remember that unless you live in a handful of U.S. states, your vote for president literally does not matter. Your state is either majority Republican or majority Democrat, and the machinations of the electoral college ensure that you’re largely locked into that. Sure, there are states where some elections are closer than others, and in the past many states have been swung by strong campaigns, but there’s no reason to expect anything like that this year. The prevailing wisdom would usually hold that the incumbent would sail to victory in a re-election scenario such as this. However, Biden is astoundingly unpopular for an incumbent President, amidst an inflated economy and his egregious backing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. His opponent is a former President currently facing legal challenges and trials for everything from defamation to bribery, with court challenges to have his name withheld from the ballot for inciting insurrection underway in several states. None of this guarantees anything, and no one knows how anything is going to go.
You may be thinking that this means we must vote even harder, that democracy is at stake (what democracy?), et al. And sure, if it makes you feel better, go ahead and vote for whoever you want. However, it’s worth briefly pausing to explain the problem of the electoral college. When Americans vote for President, they are in reality voting for their states electors—the people who make up the electoral college of each state. Whichever candidate in each state receives more votes gets all of the state’s electors, who then cast their vote for said candidate. They are not legally obligated to do so, however, but have historically done so 99% of the time. The problem comes in the fact that each state has a different amount of electoral votes, which can create a scenario we are now all too familiar with: the candidate that wins the popular vote of the country does not always win the Presidency. This quickly becomes a race to the bottom where the election comes down to a handful of swing states, or even counties within said swing states, which is the situation we’re currently in.
As the Washington Post points out “the count of swingable states has narrowed. The 2024 presidential campaign is likely to target a smaller share of Americans than at any point in the modern era.” This is the reality that the electoral college creates, in addition to the cult of data science that runs all modern political campaigns. When you can write off states as “locked in” you focus only on the “battleground” states, or the ones over which there is actual competition to go red and blue. As this is a match up of Presidents who we’ve already seen perform against each other, there is a lot that is predictable. Different outlets are putting forward how many states they think the competition will be narrowed down to; WaPo says 7, the Center for Politics says 4, The Hill says 6, All included, this race will likely come down to the voters in certain parts of North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Florida is not expected to be contested, but we can throw that in for good measure. Being generous, this is a handful of voters in 8 states that decide the next President of the United States.
As an example, according to the chair of the Republican Party in North Carolina who the Washington Post talked to, they will focus on less than 2 percent of votes cast there: “It’ll be down to 100,000 voters who are undecided going into the election that we’re going to be targeting and communicating with.”
By the way, you can thank our Beloved Woke Broadway King Alexander Hamilton for this dusty ass anti-democratic system. In the Federalist Papers he very much espoused a combination of “the peasants can't be trusted to vote in their own interests” and “tyranny of the majority” sentiments, writing that the electoral college is ideal because “a small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.” He argues that essentially by creating the intermediary of the electoral college they will be able to make educated decisions by and for the public, thus “ensuring” that “the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” We’ve seen how that’s worked out.
As a very important addendum: this applies only to the Presidential elections. I think voting in local elections is very important and generally has more impact on your daily life, surroundings, and community. You should pay attention to local politics and meaningfully vote, or even campaign for, those who you think will make your lives, neighborhoods, or cities better. This is also why I’m doubly frustrated when the roving Biden street gangs come around. I never see them giving that same energy to local politics, where your vote actually does matter.
So for those who have already started cranking the “YOU HAVE TO VOTE FOR BIDEN” siren I am kindly asking you to remember the realities of the American political system and suggesting that your energy would be better spent elsewhere. While millions are rightly horrified by President Biden full-throatedly backing a genocide, none of those same people want or prefer Trump. And given how the electoral system works in this country, their “Uncommitted” vote in the primaries or third party vote in the general won’t give us Trump! That’s not really how this system works. There is no reason to believe that Cornel West or RFK Jr. are posing enough of a serious threat to tip an existing blue state stronghold to red, and swing states are already swing states. I understand those who fear for the safety of themselves and their loved ones under Trump—I am personally a part of those vulnerable communities—yet the way to win votes for Biden is to pressure him to stop backing Israel, not to tell us that tens of thousands of dead Palestinians is something we just have to swallow.
I don’t point all of this out to make you despair about voting or to induce any nihilism, apathy, or general malaise in you. I don’t really care if you vote, do whatever you want. What I do care about is the fact that every four years the cries of millions of liberals roar in like a hoard of locusts demanding that we all vote for Joe Biden otherwise the world will end. As someone who has only ever lived in deep blue states this has frustrated me endlessly. Again, it literally does not matter who I vote for, the votes of my state that count toward the presidency are already decided. This is, frankly, wasted political energy that could be better spent doing literally anything else, which I would encourage you to do.
Campaign for whoever you want. Vote for whoever you want. But if you live in a deep blue or deep red state with no chance of flipping, which I’m sure the majority of you do, please, leave the sanctimony at home.
As much as I like reading your stuff, your logic in this piece is absurd. You are implying that coter opinions will never change so dont bother and you are complaining that liberals wncourage people to vote. How many local elections have you voted in ? Do you even know who your local council member is? Telling people not to bother however fucked up our voting system is makes you sound like a trump supporter.