I’ve often wondered how much knowing that the electoral college is in place drives voter turnout: how many conservatives in New York or California (or liberals in Texas) don’t bother to go to the hassle of showing up to the polls because they know their state won’t win anyway? In most presidential races, the race is called before the polls even close in Hawaii, so I’m sure an awful lot of people don’t bother to show up there.

It even works both ways. I know people here in NYS who don't go to the polls to vote Democrat because they know they don't have to—the state as a whole voting Democrat is a foregone conclusion, so what does their vote matter?

Which is also why trying to question, say, Trump win based on popular vote is stupid: yes, he got 46% of votes vs 48% for Clinton, but if there was no Electoral College and every vote counted people would probably have voted differently. How differenlty? We'll never know until we try :)

He's also said he'd have organized his campaign visits differently, which would've altered the result even further.

CA voter here - I believe that's correct to an extent. This is a blue state so you cannot influence presidential election here. However, there are local policies/measures/propositions and that is why people turn up to vote.

Can you provide any sources to back that assertion? It seems counterintuitive to me. NAFTA comes to mind as one such policy that was pretty hard on rural areas, but I’m not sure if that’s what you meant?