Do votes in non-swing states matter?

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In the United States, presidents aren't elected based on the popular vote. They are elected by the number of electoral votes from each state. A presidential candidate has to win at least 270 electoral votes in order to be elected. States that are considered "swing states" are crucial for a candidate to win. I live in Ohio which is considered a swing state. My vote has more leverage than somebody living in a state that is not a swing state. For a republican living in a blue state or a democrat living in a red state, does their vote really matter? A republican casting a vote for Trump in California will more than likely not make a difference because we know that California is going to go for Joe Biden. It's the same thing for a democrat living in Alabama or in the deep south. The south always votes republican so the people who are democrats in the south won't have that much leverage in the election either. The Founding Fathers set up the electoral college so that presidential candidates would not ignore people living in smaller cities and states. If we elected presidents based on the popular vote, then presidential candidates would have to spend most of their time campaigning in places like LA and New York where the populations are bigger and ignore the rest of the country. Presidential candidates would be relying on heavily populated areas of the country to put them in the White House if we did not have the electoral college.

Value of the electoral college aside, I think it is important to vote regardless of whether it will make a significant difference for the presidential election. For one, the state and local measures are VERY important and each vote definitely does count there.

Second, I’m not sure the red- or blue-ness of states would be as certain if voter turnout was higher. Like if every eligible person in Florida voted, it wouldn’t be a swing state at all. I think the kind of people who always vote no matter what are a strong driver of the current expected red/blue breakdown. As many polls and analyses show, voter turnout is lowest among people aged 18-35 and BIPOC. If these groups showed up in numbers far beyond what is expected, things could be quite different.

These days, a lot of states that normally would NOT be "swing states" are up for grabs, because voter turnout is much higher than normal, and also because of the overall weird situation we're in right now.