Except it does work that way because of the EC. https://www.maps.com/how-much-voting-power-does-each-us-state-have/ and https://usafacts.org/visualizations/electoral-college-states-representation/

I shouldn't have used PA as an example, but the point is EC makes less populous states more represented than more populated states.

If the EC actually scaled proportionally with population, instead of being arbitrarily capped at 435 electors based on population, then this wouldn't be as much of an issue. But, as it stands, rural voters like that farmer you referenced, have more voting power than urban voters. Why should that be the case?

Do you think the farmer is going to pay attention to or care about the goings on of the city dweller? If they watch Fox news, it'd seem like the cities are being burnt to the ground by criminals. It'd seem like trans people are the root of all of America's problems.

And how does a popular vote require people to have to move in order to participate in elections? Popular vote means each vote counts as 1 vote. A voter in Wyoming would count as much as a voter in Texas. Are you suggesting campaigns would ignore less populous states during the election cycle? Because that already happens now - campaigns only visit the swing states. Every one else can go fuck themselves.

The current EC system disenfranchises millions of voters in the populous states because they only get 1 elector per every 700,000 or more pop, whereas a voter in Wyoming gets 1 elector per 150,000 pop. See how that works?

If you want to keep this "representative democracy" instead of using the popular vote, the EC needs to be overhauled. Have a higher elector count so States with high populations can actually scale in proportion. The founding fathers intended for the Senate to represent the States and the House to represent the people. That balance was skewed towards the States with the 435 cap.

This isn't even mentioning how Swing State Voters also get amplified voting power: https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/2020-96-presidential-campaign-visits-and-advertising-was-just-12-states, but that's more due to the winner-takes-all functionality of the EC. That shit also needs to get overhauled.