In 2020, the outcome could easily be reversed — the Democratic standardbearer could win the electoral vote, but not the popular vote. Let me put forward this scenario of how it might happen:
--Trump follows through on his promises to bring back American jobs; he pushes through massive infrastructure spending and tax incentives that revitalize the Rust Belt. Trump runs up his popular vote totals in the Rust Belt; former battlegrounds like Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan become solid red states for Trump. Trump flips Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Maine into his column.
--However, Trump is narrowly edged out in Texas, Arizona, and Florida due to his unpopular immigration policies. Hillary cut Trump’s lead in half from 2012 in Texas and nearly won in Arizona. And Florida was close and could easily flip again, especially if Trump pisses off Marco Rubio by continuing to make nice with Putin.
--Trump also drops Georgia; I had written it off early on election night, but Hillary nearly came back and won there; she did better than Obama did in 2012. Thanks to a Democratic governor stopping any more vote suppression in North Carolina, our 2020 standardbearer flips North Carolina into the blue column.
--As a result of these changes, Trump wins the popular vote but loses the electoral vote bigly — 324 for our standardbearer, 214 for him.
The Trump supporters would be just as outraged as we were at the outcome this time; they would move heaven and earth to delegitimize whoever wins for the next four or eight years. Since Trump could just as easily win the popular vote but not the electoral vote next time, abolishing the Electoral College is not a partisan political issue. The original purpose of the Electoral College was to keep a check on the tendencies of the people to elect corrupt leaders who would not put the good of the country first. But since the Electoral College did not do its job (they are selected for their loyalty to the party, as opposed to being a check on the power of the people), it has outlived its usefulness in this country.