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Last time I did the math, you'd have to win 100% of the vote in the 100 most populous cites, plus a few million more, to win the popular vote.

Cities are big, but they aren't that big. The 10 biggest cities only have 7% of the population, and then they get a lot smaller from there.

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That sounds like you’re only considering strict city limits but there are three major categories: urban, suburban and rural with urban outnumbering rural two to one but suburban far outnumbering both so it really comes down to how you slice suburban. While suburbanites don’t live within cities proper they could be fairly categorized between those who reside in the suburbs but live their lives in the city and those who spend most of their time outside of the city.

Yes but also even the most blue urban cities only vote about 60/40 democrat/republican.

The point is the only way to win the popular vote is by capturing a lot of rural America no matter which party you're part of.

Depends how you define "a lot" - rural areas make up 20% of the population of the US, so you might need some rural voters but not necessarily a lot (percentage of actual voters may vary, but I don't have those numbers handy).

I'm not totally sure that your numbers are correct, at least for presidential elections. Philadelphia's split in 2020 was 81% for Biden and 18% for Trump.

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