Allow me to point out, that were it not for the abnormally large percentage of Californian voters who went with hillary over trump, than Trump would have won the popular election. It's just that California has an absurd population, that culture there has a large impact on the popular vote.
The electoral college is in place so that all states have at least a minimum of a level of impact on the vote of the country, as we live in a federated republic of states - each state is meant to be represented in national elections. The electoral college was designed so that urban demographics are on equal ground with rural demographics, as the founding fathers were worried of mob rule scenarios, as well as concerned that farmers had as much a voice as academics. Etc, etc, etc.
End of the day, the electoral collage is there for a reason, and was built from the lessons learned of the Athenian democracy and the Roman republic.
The lesson learned is that rural voters, in popular vote systems, are often ignored, which tends to lead to a lot of issues down the line as urban demographics become the only groups pandered to by politicians, and rural voters needs/concerns become ignored completely over time. The electoral system allows for multiple rural states to equal a heavily populated state, instead of being completely irrelevant. You'll notice that Trump won 29-30 states to Hillary's 20-21, and Trump won the vast majority of the USA's physical landmass, including the states with the greatest amounts of industry and agriculture.
Meanwhile, service and technology oriented states, which see extreme urbanization, went for Hillary. This is the balancing of interest group priorities the electoral college is there to protect, instead of the government being controlled by only a couple of interest groups.
