California did not give Clinton or popular vote lead.
I'm not sure if it is just fanciful thinking, spite or idiocy that drives these statements, but for a while I've been reading on Twitter that people in the states that won Trump the presidency look at Clinton's popular vote lead being "caused" in some way, solely by California.
From what I've read, it is true that there were enough votes there alone to account for the whole of her lead over Trump. BUT! And this is CATASTROPHICALLY IMPORTANT, without the several fold MORE votes it required to bring her up to parity with Trump she would have lost.
In doing this, people are simply shifting blame and being ignorant. You ignore the fact that quite likely somewhere in the vicinity of 30-50-ish% of your neighbours voted for Clinton as well.
People, I think, are hanging onto this California thing because they were the last to finalize their counts (due to the large numbers of votes) and because idiotic factoids like the one that points out that her lead amounts to effectively her vote count in that state.
Here is a "shocking" statistic for you. For the sake of nice round-ish numbers. The US has 50-ish states. California is thus roughly about 1/50th of the states in the US. That is 2%. Clinton's lead in the popular vote was... 2%. Nothing really seems amiss here to me, and especially given the population of CA relative to many others, I think you should agree that this isn't even worthy of being a talking point.
Another thing... while California may have been one of the biggest states for Democrats, it wasn't like 100% of the vote was Clinton. Thus, if you subtract their votes, you not only eliminate Clinton's votes there, but also Trump's. Given the size of CA and that it was largely Clinton supporters, taking those votes away would have shrunk her lead. But it wouldn't have taken it away.
Here is the VERY simple math to back that up. Let's assume, again for simplicity that Clinton's total vote count in CA was exactly equal to her lead over trump in the popular vote and she got 70% of the vote there. Now let's assume that lead was 7 million. That would mean 3 million voted for Trump.
Since Clinton's lead equals her total votes in CA, it means those 3 million votes for Trump were required to give them a tie. Which means Clinton won the popular vote even without CA. Just by a smaller amount.
You can see, if you JUST take away all of Clinton's votes, it would just be a tie. But then, taking away ALL of Clinton's CA votes would NOT be taking away CA's votes. If you actually take away CA's, you also take away Trump's 3 million as well. And guess what? That gives Clinton a 3 million vote lead.
Now, these numbers aren't exact. Heck, they aren't even approximations. But I do know 2 things; the claim is that Clinton's vote lead *roughly* equals her total votes from CA, and I know that CA, while voted perhaps more Democratic than other states, it was still nowhere near 100% meaning some meaningful number of Trump votes from CA were required to bring Trump up to parity in the popular vote nationally BEFORE adding Clinton's CA votes to the mix. If that is all true, it still means that Clinton won the popular vote without CA.
BUT, even if removing CA *would* have lost Clinton the popular vote lead (which no credible news I've read even implies) it doesn't change the fact that near to half of all voters in virtually every state still voted for her. No one state can claim to be the cause of either Clinton's popular vote win or even Trump's electoral college win for that matter.
From what I've read, it is true that there were enough votes there alone to account for the whole of her lead over Trump. BUT! And this is CATASTROPHICALLY IMPORTANT, without the several fold MORE votes it required to bring her up to parity with Trump she would have lost.
In doing this, people are simply shifting blame and being ignorant. You ignore the fact that quite likely somewhere in the vicinity of 30-50-ish% of your neighbours voted for Clinton as well.
People, I think, are hanging onto this California thing because they were the last to finalize their counts (due to the large numbers of votes) and because idiotic factoids like the one that points out that her lead amounts to effectively her vote count in that state.
Here is a "shocking" statistic for you. For the sake of nice round-ish numbers. The US has 50-ish states. California is thus roughly about 1/50th of the states in the US. That is 2%. Clinton's lead in the popular vote was... 2%. Nothing really seems amiss here to me, and especially given the population of CA relative to many others, I think you should agree that this isn't even worthy of being a talking point.
Another thing... while California may have been one of the biggest states for Democrats, it wasn't like 100% of the vote was Clinton. Thus, if you subtract their votes, you not only eliminate Clinton's votes there, but also Trump's. Given the size of CA and that it was largely Clinton supporters, taking those votes away would have shrunk her lead. But it wouldn't have taken it away.
Here is the VERY simple math to back that up. Let's assume, again for simplicity that Clinton's total vote count in CA was exactly equal to her lead over trump in the popular vote and she got 70% of the vote there. Now let's assume that lead was 7 million. That would mean 3 million voted for Trump.
Since Clinton's lead equals her total votes in CA, it means those 3 million votes for Trump were required to give them a tie. Which means Clinton won the popular vote even without CA. Just by a smaller amount.
You can see, if you JUST take away all of Clinton's votes, it would just be a tie. But then, taking away ALL of Clinton's CA votes would NOT be taking away CA's votes. If you actually take away CA's, you also take away Trump's 3 million as well. And guess what? That gives Clinton a 3 million vote lead.
Now, these numbers aren't exact. Heck, they aren't even approximations. But I do know 2 things; the claim is that Clinton's vote lead *roughly* equals her total votes from CA, and I know that CA, while voted perhaps more Democratic than other states, it was still nowhere near 100% meaning some meaningful number of Trump votes from CA were required to bring Trump up to parity in the popular vote nationally BEFORE adding Clinton's CA votes to the mix. If that is all true, it still means that Clinton won the popular vote without CA.
BUT, even if removing CA *would* have lost Clinton the popular vote lead (which no credible news I've read even implies) it doesn't change the fact that near to half of all voters in virtually every state still voted for her. No one state can claim to be the cause of either Clinton's popular vote win or even Trump's electoral college win for that matter.
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