My comment wasn't about he attention they get, it's about whether or not their opinion and collective voice would have any reasonable possibility of influencing an outcome.
Right now, The Big Blues (CA, NY) aren't battlegrounds because they almost always vote blue. Their vote can effectively be assumed as given. Most of the interior aren't battlegrounds because they usually go red, and can be predicted pretty well. The battlegrounds are the swing states - the ones that have a moderate number of ec votes AND who are not strongly red or blue. They can be swayed to one side or the other in terms of electoral votes.
Let's think about what would happen if we made it popular only. T popular vote in swing states ends up being close to 50/50, no matter what (that's why they're "swing"). So they'd be an even split. Most other states run within a 10 point spread, and the direction is often (not always) known. Then there are ones like NY and CA that have very large populations, and usually go very strongly blue. CA had nearly a 30 point spread in favor of Clinton, amounting to 2.5 millions votes. NY had a 21 point spread, amounting to 1.5 million votes. That's +4 million votes to Clinton, which is significantly higher than the spread in popular votes across the entire country.
If this were a purely popular vote, the election would have been won exclusively by two states. Two states whose bulk of votes are coming from very densely populated cities. Two cities that are materially different from the entire rest of the country in terms of culture, behavior, demographic mix, income, and belief.
Those two states effectively disenfranchise the entire rest of the country.
