Statewide.

Wednesday, August 12th, 2020

After the Georgia runoff election for the primary Tuesday, where the winning republican candidate in the 14th congressional district is a nut case who has used the language of racism and Qanon conspiracy garbage to win her race, I heard more of those “how can you live in Georgia?” questions. “But, but,” I say, her district is way up there in the northwest corner, far from the metropolitan voters in Atlanta, Athens, Savannah, and Macon. Far away from our comfortable, humane, intown Atlanta neighborhood.

It’s the same if you live in the rural counties of upper Michigan. The political view from around the lakes and cornfields there look pretty darn red, and can be disturbing until you do the math and discover that the populous southern part of the state, way more diverse, way more democratic, will likely carry the state comfortably into the blue column in the 2020 election’s ultimately Electoral College determined contest.

This is true in Ohio. In Illinois. In California. In New York.

We are a diverse country divided somewhat arbitrarily into states, and those states are either diverse or (in some cases) they are not. There are those who want to hold onto the Electoral College system as some sort of leveler don’t really want people who live in more urban, clustered-together environments to have their full numbers count.

I however, do.