Here is my article from 4 years ago, after the previous Trump election. Understand that, if we switch to the popular vote, many states end up with less influence over the election. Any small states with only a few electoral college votes end up with even less influence. They get 2 votes for their 2 Senators, and then at least one more vote for their representative. They have less influence if it is the popular vote as Reps are assigned to States based on the population, but even small states have the same number of Senators as populous states.
Then certain States gain in influence, with Florida gaining about 40% more influence. You see, Reps are assigned to States based on the population, including non-voters. Florida has fewer children, so they have a higher percentage of voters per total population. They also have more older voters, who tend to vote in large numbers, as opposed to states with many young adults, who often do not turn out for elections.
Under the numbers from the previous election, California gets 28% less influence over who is president in a popular vote system, and Florida gets almost 40% more influence. NC, Penn, Ohio, and Michigan also gain much influence, whereas all the less populated states lose influence, with D.C. losing almost 60% of its influence. Instead of having 3 Electoral College votes, it will be as if D.C. has 1.2 votes.
People in this great nation are not all the same. A one-person one-vote system for determining the President will take influence away from all the less populous states and some of the populous states. 26 States lose 10% or more of their influence over the presidential vote, with Alabama losing over 88% of its influence.
Then there is the problem of weather. November can see snow or ice in New England and some other northern States. Over time, this will mean that those areas have less influence over the presidency, due to low turnout in bad weather (unless Mail-in Voting predominates the election in continued contradiction to the Constitution which says we must all vote on the same day). So New England and California will have less influence over the election, in a popular vote system.
I don’t agree that the popular vote system is better.
the reproach of Christ 
Electoral college is inherited from another era when few countries in the world were republics at all. If we assume the reasons behind the fathers of the US republic are still workable today, then the result is 50 states pretty much as independent as EU states who at a certain point may go their own way, as we saw it possible with Brexit. In the world and especially in the EU there are two election systems working well for at least 1.5 century: majoritarian and proportional, and a mix between them to minimize the shortcomings of each one implemented alone (check wikipedia). Another thing about America is, it is a presidential republic where the president appoints the cabinet, not the prime minister. The Congress despite being so powerful can’t do as much as the European parliaments do. There is no vote of confidence or non confidence in the government’s policy, you can’t sack ministers/secretaries for disagreement with their policy let alone the president (impeachment implies an offence done, while non confidence vote is just disagreement with the policy). Indeed many other republics especially in Latin America are presidential not parliamentary republics. It is up to the US people to decide what kind of republic they want to have in 21st century. And could the current system hold together 50 so divided states. You can clearly draw new lines on the US map based on the colors. Quite frankly, that is impossible in any other developed country. And if it ever happens in a third world country, it could mean civil war. Hope the leading democracy in the world will avoid the worst case scenario.