Without the electoral college, states like New York, Illinois, and California wouldn’t matter. Ideas would matter, because a candidate’s ideas or a party’s policies would have to be tailored around the support of a majority of the country’s residents, regardless of where they’re from.

Here’s the 2016 popular vote for President, in California:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election_in_California

Nationwide, Republicans would have to counter a four million vote deficit. If Republicans’ platforms were palatable to the majority of the country, then winning elections as a Republican with the popular vote would be feasible.

Unfortunately for those of us who are liberal, but live in red states, Republicans’ ideology has shifted so far to the right that, without the electoral college, they would have lost two of the last five presidential elections, which could very well have wiped 12 years of Republican rule out of the history books.