If the Electoral College assigned delegates based on the state population, how would that be different than the Popular Vote? Unless of course, gerrymandering and districting were allowed like seats for Congress and State Legislatures; we see how that has turned out.

I’m not sure much of the nation would agree that the Electoral College has always produced a good result. In 1876 the Democrats were one vote shy with two states results disputed. Democrats (the evil racist Democrats of the period) also won the popular vote. In the Compromise of 1877, Democrats allowed the Republicans to win the Presidency on the condition Rutherford B. Hayes removed the Federal Troops from the South which ended Reconstruction and ushered in Jim Crow. Hayes also gave them Posse Comitatus the following year which ensured Federal Troops never returned to the South to protect the former slaves. The end result was thousands of lynchings over time, voter suppression (which arguably continues to this day since the Voter Rights At enforcement power was decimated by SCOTUS.

All those things were made possible by the Electoral College, producing an end result that even the rightfully elected Democrat couldn’t have gotten through a bi-partisan Congress.

I can’t think of an instance where a Democrat, especially since the 1960s when the Dixiecrats scurried to the Republican Party, won the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. I can see why Republicans might think it just dandy by getting George W. Bush and Donald Trump. I live in Florida and agree that the Florida Supreme Court tried to force a result and can even understand the reasoning of SCOTUS in handing Bush the victory but there was no real reason to stop counting the votes except to secure a Republican victory. It might be there that the concept of an illegitimate President became widespread and carried on to the Trump victory.