MAYBE THESE MAPS AND LEGENDS HAVE BEEN MISUNDERSTOOD

Matt K. Lewis, right-leaning commentator for the Daily Beast and CNN, is being deservedly dragged for this tweet:

Getting rid of the electoral college also means creating a system where this map isn’t enough to elect a Republican. pic.twitter.com/oYTlcxstAB

— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) March 22, 2019

Here's the obvious rebuttal to this, from the Census Bureau:

Urban areas make up only 3 percent of the entire land area of the country but are home to more than 80 percent of the population. Conversely, 97 percent of the country’s land mass is rural but only 19.3 percent of the population lives there.

Brooklyn (71 square miles of land) contains more people than Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota combined (245,792 square miles total). We could make similar comparisons all across the country.

But let's take Lewis's idea seriously. Look at the map at the top of the post. Now look at this map:



I see a lot of red on this map, too. But it's not a map of the 2016 election -- it's the county-by-county map of the 2008 election. In that election, Barack Obama won the Electoral College 365-173. He won the popular vote by 7 points. His popular vote margin was nearly 10 million. He won unambiguously.

But look at all the red. A clear majority of the landmass on the map is red.

Does Matt Lewis think we should have handed the 2008 election to John McCain, because of much land McCain Country included? And if not, why not?

Tell us, Matt.