How ‘National Popular Vote’ favors the political left

Article CAIRCO note: 
The growth of Colorado universities has facilitated Democrat election dominance
Article author: 
Rob Natelson
Article publisher: 
Complete Colorado
Article date: 
20 June 2020
Article category: 
National News
Medium
Article Body: 

The National Popular Vote (NPV) movement claims to be non-partisan. Yet all the state legislatures endorsing it are controlled by Democrats....

There is a very good reason for this imbalance: NPV is structured to bias presidential elections in favor of the Left. If NPV were adopted (admittedly, a big “if”) and if the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional (an even bigger “if”), NPV would enable left-of-center candidates to win most presidential elections throughout the foreseeable future....

 For “progressive” candidates, the key is to drive up the vote in areas where many people are dependent on government. Dependent electors typically vote to protect their government benefits, often irrespective of other values. The three areas with the most dependent voters are (1) large cities, (2) state capitals, and (3) university towns. If a “progressive” candidate can pull sufficient votes from those three areas, it doesn’t matter much what the rest of the state may think....

State universities have changed from relatively small centers of learning into medium-sized cities, nearly all of which vote Democrat—even Socialist. In many of them, real learning is less important than many other activities, including politics. Occupants of those cities are highly dependent on government, and their concentrated population makes them easy targets for professional “progressive” activists.
 
One reason that California has become a reliably Democratic state is that it harbors nearly a quarter of a million students in the UC university system, nearly half a million in the California State University system, and more than two million in its community college empire.
 
Coloradans wondering why their state has veered so sharply to the left should consider the growth of Colorado public universities. The campuses of the University of Colorado now enroll over 67,000 students and employ 8,000 faculty. Colorado State University adds another 33,000 students and nearly 2,000 faculty. All those folks have family members and/or patronize local businesses and organizations. Is it any wonder that those communities vote overwhelmingly Left?...

You can see the effects of this strategy by examining election returns in many states. Oregon may serve as an illustration....

NPV would enable “progressive” candidates to play the same game on the national level—but even more effectively...