Ben Cline, after fixing the referendum, should fix the Electoral College

Ben Cline is upset that a 51-48 result is going to reduce MAGA representation in the Virginia congressional delegation “to a meager 9 percent.”

“Virginia’s current map correctly reflects the politics of our Commonwealth,” Cline wrote on his socials on Thursday.

OK, Ben, so, now do the Electoral College.

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ICYMI

• Ben Cline breaks his silence on failure to save his job from the gerrymander

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There’s no Donald Trump era without the Electoral College being winner-takes-all, which isn’t even limiting the other side “to a meager 9 percent.”

Remember, Trump lost the actual final count by 2.9 million votes, 2.1 percent – a greater margin, you may remember, than Trump’s win over Kamala Harris in 2024: 2.3 million votes, 1.5 percent.

Trump keeps claiming that victory over Harris as a “landslide.”

Math: not his strong suit.

Trump was “elected” president in 2016 because of his small-margin wins in Michigan (10,000 votes), Wisconsin (23,000 votes, 0.8 percent), Pennsylvania (44,000 votes).

Those 43 electoral votes, decided by a total of 77,000 votes, from among 13.1 million votes cast in those three states, flipped the entire election from Clinton to Trump.

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Now, if we use the Ben Cline logic that he wants us to apply to the Virginia congressional delegation, we could fix our broken Electoral College so that, for example, Michigan, 16 electoral votes in 2016, it was a 50/50 election, so, each side gets eight electoral votes there, instead of Trump getting all 16, because he won by 0.2 percent.

Do that up and down the state vote count, and, well, you see why Republicans don’t want to go crazy with this proportional vote thing.

George W. Bush is never president without the Electoral College.

Donald Trump is never president without the Electoral College.

Republicans never have a majority in the U.S. House without gerrymandering in state legislatures with Republican majorities.

Republicans only cry foul when the system they’ve used to steal the presidency twice, and to win majorities in Congress, works against them.

Don’t fall for it, is what I’m getting at here.