“Barack Obama won only 53 percent of the vote on Election Day, but he is getting a landslide greeting from the American public. Indeed, recent polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find the public exuberant about Mr. Obama and optimistic that he will solve the nation’s problems.”
Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, has the details.
Key point: “… Pew found 67 percent of its national sample of voters saying they thought that Mr. Obama would have a successful first term, as many as 39 percent of those voters supported John McCain.”
There are two good arguments for the electoral college:
1. It reduces the likelihood of a cumbersome and indecisively resolved multi-state recount in a close election. The result is in question only when the margin of victory in the marginal state is very close. This happens less often than a close popular vote.
2. It exaggerates the margin of victory of the winner, improving public support for that person.