It's hard to think of a more irresistible morsel of dubious conventional wisdom than the claim that, driven by demographic change, the presidential electoral map now greatly favors the Democrats. The latest propagation of this myth is found in a long piece by National Review Online's chief political correspondent, Tim Alberta ("Does Donald Trump Have a Path to 270?"), from which Mark Levin read aloud at great length during his radio program on Tuesday. Levin, who has yet to say how he'll cast his vote for president, framed Alberta's piece as being authoritative in portraying dire straits for Donald Trump.
Alberta asserts that the Democrats "entered 2016 with a decided advantage" in the race to get to 270 electoral votes and asks whether Trump "has any realistic path to defeating Hillary Clinton." He immediately responds, "The answer, barring unforeseen and politically transcendent developments, is no." As Alberta explains it, this is largely because, even if Trump were to turn in "a series of virtuoso performances" in the upcoming debates—an unrealistically high bar for any candidate—he "would still be hampered by the one thing he cannot change: the Electoral College." In other words, Alberta claims, Trump likely wouldn't be able to scale "the blue wall" that holds Republicans' presidential hopes at bay.
In truth, however, this "blue wall" doesn't exist. The Electoral College does not give a clear advantage to either political party. Democrats have won the electoral vote in four of the past six presidential elections because they have won the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. Indeed, one need look back only four Olympiads—to the year of Michael Phelps's first Olympics—to find an example of a Democratic nominee losing the electoral vote despite winning the national popular vote—and by more than half a percentage point....
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