Ohio went for Obama. But if its Electoral College contingent had been determined by congressional district, a majority of electors would have gone for Romney; and if the other battleground states with Republican-contolled state governments do the same thing, the GOP can probably win.
The trick is gerrymandering. Ohio's districts are designed to put Democratic minorities into as many districts as possible, making Ohio Republican congressmen strongly disproportionate to the actual number of Republicans in the state.
This would not be the case if Ohio had nonpartisan redistricting, but that's not how either party rolls. California got nonpartisan redistricting over the opposition of both major parties, via ballot initiative.
Ohio Republicans are already working on this idea.
Could Democratically-controlled states do the same? Sure, except for ones like California that have banned gerrymandering.
And of course Republicans wouldn't dream of adopting congressional district Elector assignment in states where a majority of voters.
What we need is nonpartisan redistricting in every state and then electors apportioned by the vote within each state in some way--congressional district apportionment could work IF the districts weren't gerrymandered.
But doing this piecemeal only in states where it would give Republican an advantage is not just immoral--it wipes out any justification for doing this apart from sheer tribalism.
It increases the sense of The Enemy not being America's enemies but your party's opponents. Pity one of major parties pursues this notion in so many ways.
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