Electoral College Lite

One of the most frequent arguments that I have heard recently in favor of the electoral college is that 10-15 urban areas, or alternatively, New York City and Los Angeles, would decide the election. With respect to the NYC/LA argument, those two cities hold 6% of the total US population, which is pretty significant, but the states of New York and California already hold 21% of the electoral votes, so their influence is already outsize. What the supporters of this idea forget is that there are plenty of people in New York and California outside the major urban centers that are more rural, more conservative and tend to vote Republican. These votes would suddenly count, as they don't now, being drowned in the sea of Democratic votes, just as Democratic votes in primarily Republican states don't end up counting toward the total. Electoral College advocates believe that there will be no campaigning in the small states due to their small population, but isn't that what's happening now? Very seldom do you see much attention paid to small states, especially in those that are a lock for either party. An exception is in a close election (like this last one) where every electoral vote was thought to be significant - Trump worked hard to get that one electoral vote in Maine and Clinton campaigned to win that one electoral vote in Nebraska (and failed). If the big urban areas are viewed as a Democratic lock, would you see the Republicans campaigning in the smaller states in order to balance the urban areas? It's hard to say, but one thing is for sure, the rural votes in California, as well as urban votes in Texas would be in play as they would not be under the current system.