How will the right react if this happens?

[Devils30]

Clinton 48.5% - 270 EV
Rubio 50%- 268 EV

Hillary wins Virginia by 3,000 votes after being down nearly the whole night. Rubio makes inroads with working class whites, wins OH, FL, CO, IA and narrowly loses WI. Virginia's Democratic trend is just too much for the GOP and Hillary pulls it out narrowly.

[Mister Mets]

Many would upset.

There might be some odd manuevers, like trying to encourage faithless electors.

Hillary would face a lot of congressional opposition due to the lack of a mandate.

There might be a new push in favor of the popular vote compact.

[Türkisblau]

Abolish the electoral college!!!!!!

[Mr. Illini]

[Angel of Death]

"Not conservative enough."™

[Devils30]

I don't think this entirely unrealistic either. Let's say the GOP improves with Hispanics and Hillary continues to play somewhat weakly in the west. Nevada's demographics make it tough for the GOP even with Hillary slipping and Rubio manages to win Colorado by a point or so. He carries Florida by a couple points, squeaks out Ohio and Iowa by a couple but falls short in Wisconsin and New Hampshire. Virginia does not have a huge number of Hispanics, it saves Hillary with white- professional women in NoVA.

[SteveRogers]

If Republicans still controlled both the House and Senate at that point, they'd immediately begin trying to pass a Constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college. I don't think it would make it out of congress though.

There'd be a renewed push in states like Michigan to allocate the state's EVs by congressional district.

Maybe some Republican states would jump on board the NPVIC. 

[Devils30]

I think Colorado would most likely go Democratic with these states but the map is not out of the realm of probability.

[Skill and Chance]

Could Michigan and/or Wisconsin retroactively change the EV allocation to proportional or by CD prior to the meeting of the electors in December?  Serious question, because I recall the Florida legislature threatening to assign their electors to Bush by legislative action if the recount didn't stop.

[The Free North]

Lose Virginia by 3,000 votes?

'muh southern women!

[pbrower2a]

Could Michigan and/or Wisconsin retroactively change the EV allocation to proportional or by CD prior to the meeting of the electors in December?  Serious question, because I recall the Florida legislature threatening to assign their electors to Bush by legislative action if the recount didn't stop.

No. Retroactive changes in electoral law to favor one side after a prior election  makes a mockery of the vote. Such would have thrown the 2000 election to Al Gore had it been done in Florida or in several states that Dubya clearly won.

[Mister Mets]

The equivalent for the left: Republicans nominate Scott Walker, and he flips Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Iowa for a 269 tie, resolved by the House.

Walker/ Rubio- 269 electoral votes. 47.8%
Clinton/ Kaine- 269 electoral votes. 50.2%

[SteveRogers]

Could Michigan and/or Wisconsin retroactively change the EV allocation to proportional or by CD prior to the meeting of the electors in December?  Serious question, because I recall the Florida legislature threatening to assign their electors to Bush by legislative action if the recount didn't stop.

When you cast a ballot in a presidential election, you're really casting a ballot for a slate of electors. While a Michigan voter might check a box for "Hillary Clinton," theoretically they could look up the list of the names of the group of 16 electors that they're actually casting a vote for.

I think the problem with this particular plan would be that the people of the state would have already cast ballots with the understanding that they were casting a ballot for the whole slate of electors. You couldn't retroactively pretend that the voters had cast a ballot announcing a preference that some proportion of those electors be chosen, or that they cast a ballot for one particular elector retroactively assigned to their congressional district.    

Now whether a state legislature could retroactively ditch the election results and assign the state's electors to the national popular vote winner is another question entirely...

[PresidentTRUMP]

That will be our 2016 election Rubio vs. Hillary, should be fun! If that happens we would be pissed, what do you think? lol

[President Johnson]

Because Republicans win in the smaller states, which are over-represented in the EV, the scenario is unlikely. If the PV winner is the election looser, it's very likely a Democrat.

[Mister Mets]

Mets, if the map was like that Republicans would likely have won the popular vote.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Walker might get a home state bounce and might be a stronger candidate in Ohio and Iowa. Rubio could help in Florida.

Clinton might also outperform Obama in states that she's still expected to lose (Missouri, Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Utah, West Virginia, Texas) which would add to her popular vote but not the electoral vote.

[King]

Clinton and Kaine would be immediately impeached by the Republican Congress to restore "the will of the people and faith in our electoral process."

[Bull Moose Base]

That will be our 2016 election Rubio vs. Hillary, should be fun! If that happens we would be pissed, what do you think? lol

I think Rubio will win 0 states in the primaries.

If this happened, the GOP would gleefully point out that since the Democrats considered Bush an illegitimate president because he lost the popular vote, Hillary is also illegitimate. The real complaint was that his electoral college win wasn't even legitimate but when has reality ever stopped them before.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

The whites would RIOT like no crowd has done before.

[Devils30]

The 2014 Senate race in Virginia leads to think it could happen. On the surface it looks like the GOP had a strong showing there, a closer look suggests otherwise. The total vote number was DOWN about 200,000 from 2006 to 2014 and yet Warner still survived despite abysmal turnout. He lost Loudoun County and barely cracked 50% in Prince William, yet still won. It's tough to see Clinton getting less than 55% in Prince William with the U.S. Census numbers. Warner ran stronger in Appalachia than Obama but it was still only something in between Obama 2008 and 2012. In other words, Warner witnessed a Democratic turnout collapse and loss of support among whites, yet still managed to pull out a victory.

Hillary can make up running worse in that area pretty easily with better turnout in the cities. Southern Virginia also looked quite similar in all the 2012, 2013, 2014 races. It is extremely inelastic and you can pretty much book Hillary for something in between 48-51% in Chesapeake, 46-48% in Dinwiddie etc. If the GOP doesn't reverse trends in Henrico, Fairfax, Hillary is winning the state.

[pbrower2a]

Really, the States elect the President. We the People don't.

[NewYorkExpress]

Hillary and whoever her running mate is would be dead inside of a week.

[Orthogonian Society Treasurer]

The electoral college would be vindicated in my eyes if it kept a dolt like Rubio out of the White House.

[The Free North]

The electoral college would be vindicated in my eyes if it kept a dolt like Rubio out of the White House.

So the legitimacy of the electoral college is based exclusively on whether or not it serves your immediate political needs?

[pbrower2a]

It may also be a way of preventing states from casting spurious votes. Suppose that North Dakota gave twenty million votes to its prairie dogs and those votes all went Republican, and no state did anything similarly screwy, in a Presidential election based on the popular vote alone.