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A lot of ink has been spilled on the issue of the Electoral College and how it reduces the election campaign to a few swing States. But what if the system was overhauled tomorrow to a simple first-past-the-post vote? Where would politicians start to campaign in order to maximize their odds?
Note that this isn't primarily opinion based as there are plenty of other democracies with nation-wide voting for a given position.
Your assumption relies on a constitutional amendment which would devalue the input of a majority of states and would never pass. However, IF it were to happen, the most likely strategy would be to campaign where you reach the largest number of uncommitted voters and/or where you get the most free media publicity.
You can look at other countries which implement... normal (?) voting: candidates almost campaign everywhere. (They cannot campaign literally everywhere due to obvious reasons.)
It doesn't make sense to campaign for just 50% or some arbitrary percentage of the country's population. If some candidate campaigned, say, only in the five biggest cities, or even the fifty biggest ones, they certainly wouldn't get elected. Indeed, some inhabitants of these cities will never vote for the candidate, so even if these cities represent 50% of the population it wouldn't ensure a win. Electors outside these cities will feel insulted and will vote against the candidate, even if the candidate is politically aligned with them.
