Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, voiced the opinion of many Americans this week when he said that the Electoral College should be tossed in the trash.
“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” Walz said at a campaign fundraiser with California Gov. Gavin Newsom Tuesday afternoon, according to pool reporters in the room cited by POLITICO. “We need a national popular vote that is something. But that’s not the world we live in.”
Gallup polling results released late last month reveal that a majority of Americans (58%) agree with the vice-presidential hopeful. That level of support has remained steady for the past 24 years.
However – even as two presidents in those 24 years have lost the popular vote but won the election – the Electoral College is still in place. What’s the deal?
What is the Electoral College?
When voters make selections for president on election ballots, they aren’t directly voting for the president. What they are really selecting is a slate of electors that are expected to vote for a candidate.
This system can be traced back to 1787, according to the American Bar Association. It explained that the Founding Fathers created a compromise “between those who argued for the election of the president by a vote of Congress and the election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens.”
Every state’s number of votes in the Electoral College is equal to the number of senators and representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation. Political parties from each state select its slate of electors ahead of the election, with the electors tied to the winning candidate usually becoming the slate. Some states have slightly different systems.
Today, there are 538 Electoral College seats and a candidate must win 270 to be elected. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the Electoral College “benefits smaller states, which have at least three electoral votes – including two electoral votes tied to their two Senate seats, which are guaranteed even if they have a small population and thus a small House delegation.”
That’s because the population distribution of the nation has changed quite a bit since 1787. In a 2020 article, the Brookings Institution noted that each Electoral College vote in a small state like Delaware or Wyoming is worth more than an Electoral College vote in a big state like California. In fact, the most populous states – California, Texas, Florida and New York – “are all dramatically underrepresented in today’s Electoral College,” per Brookings.
With this imbalance, the likelihood of candidates winning the popular vote and losing the Electoral College goes up.
“Right now, those circumstances tend to benefit Republicans in the Electoral College, while disadvantaging Democrats who have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight elections,” said the Brookings Institution.
Indeed, the two recent elections where the popular vote and Electoral College diverged benefitted Republicans. Democrat Al Gore lost in 2000 to former President George W. Bush and Democrat Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 to former President Donald Trump. In 2020 it almost happened again, according to Brookings.
Audacy reported that, according to the Federal Election Commission, Bush beat gore with 271 electoral votes to 266, although Gore won 48.38% of the popular vote to Bush’s 47.87%. Trump had 304 electoral votes compared to Clinton’s 227, though she won the popular vote by a greater percentage (48.18% to 46.09%).
Per the U.S. House of Representatives, other candidates who won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College were Andrew Jackson in 1824 (to John Quincy Adams); Samuel Tilden in 1876 (to Rutherford B. Hayes); Grover Cleveland in 1888 (to Benjamin Harrison).
“Based on population trends... disparities will likely increase as the most populous states are expected to account for an even greater share of the U.S. population in the decades ahead,” said the Brennan Center.
Abolishing the Electoral College process would require a Constitutional amendment, as it is part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution. These amendments can take several years to pass, according to the White House, but that’s not the only roadblock. We’ll get back to that later.
Who thinks it needs to go?
Walz made similar comments about getting rid of the Electoral College at an earlier fundraiser in Seattle, said pool reporters cited by POLITICO. Last year, he signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact initiative that would effectively end the current Electoral College system, according to CBS News. We’ll also get back to that later.
When Harris was running in the 2019 presidential primaries she said during an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” that she was “open to the discussion,” of getting rid of the Electoral College, per POLITICO.
However, the Harris-Walz campaign has made it clear that ending the Electoral College is not part of its platform, said POLITICO.
“Governor Walz believes that every vote matters in the Electoral College and he is honored to be traveling the country and battleground states working to earn support for the Harris-Walz ticket. He was commenting to a crowd of strong supporters about how the campaign is built to win 270 electoral votes,” said a Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson, according to outlet. “And, he was thanking them for their support that is helping fund those efforts.”
In addition to polls that consistently show Americans would prefer if presidents were selected via the popular vote, the National Archives reports said 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College over the past 200 years.
Even though Trump won his single term in office due to the Electoral College, POLITICO noted that he has made comments in support of getting rid of it. This time around, the Trump campaign hit back at Walz’s comments. It said this in an X post: “Why does Tampon Tim hate the Constitution so much? He hates the First Amendment. He hates the Supreme Court. He hates the Electoral College.”
Why can’t we get rid of it?
Now on to those roadblocks we mentioned earlier.
Over two centuries, hundreds of attempts to change or get rid of the Electoral College have failed, and in the current political climate, hope does not seem bright. The main roadblock today is the Republican party.
“Republicans and Republican state governments are incentivized to maintain the current system, explained the Brookings Institution in 2020. It added that “such an effort would likely receive little or no Republican support.”
Polling also reflects that Republicans know the system benefits their party.
“This polling reflects why a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Electoral College will not pass the U.S. Congress any time soon, nor would it have anywhere near the necessary support in state legislatures,” Brookings said. “It is not simply Republican elected officials who want to maintain the Electoral College system; Republican voters support it as well. In a polarized political environment, such an institutional structure remains entrenched. It also means the road to any kind of reform is fraught with political potholes, particularly when the removal of such a system clearly benefits one party at the expense of another.”
However, the institution warned that maintaining the Electoral College might eventually cause significant damage to the party in the long run.
“This can’t go on,” Brookings said. “Having the person who loses the popular vote win the presidency will seriously undermine the legitimacy of our elections.”
Other options
Walz is not the only governor that has signed on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. As of this April, the National Popular Vote bill has been enacted into law in 18 jurisdictions possessing 209 electoral votes, according to the National Popular Vote website.
States that have signed on are: California, Illinois, New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont and the District of Columbia. It has also passed at least one legislative chamber in seven states with 74 electoral votes.
“The National Popular Vote bill will take effect when enacted into law by states possessing 270 electoral votes (a majority of the 538 electoral votes),” explained the website. “The bill will take effect when enacted by states possessing an additional 61 electoral votes.”
Brookings said this compact is the “most popular alternative,” to the Electoral College. It requires states to pass laws that would award their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner.
There are another two variations on this type of plan mentioned by Brookings. Both would require states to award two Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
What can we expect from the Electoral College this year?
We don’t know what the future may bring for the Electoral College, but we do know that it will have an impact on the election coming up next month. What does that mean for our candidates?
According to The Virtual Tout forecasting model based on prediction markets, the Harris-Walz campaign had a big edge over Trump and his VP pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, in September. Following the vice-presidential debate earlier this month, the odds slowly began change, and by Oct. 7, they turned in favor of the Trump-Vance ticket. By Wednesday, The Virtual Tout predicted Trump to win 275 electoral votes compared to 263 for Harris.
“We have not identified a single event to explain the drop in end-of-day forecasts for the Democratic ticket between October 6 and 7,” said the site. “The expanding war in the Middle East, perhaps? Fundamentally, we are a divided nation, and this is looking like a toss-up election.”
A consensus forecast map from 270 To Win updated Tuesday still showed Democrats in the lead for Electoral College votes, though only slightly at 226 to 219. It said there were 20 winning combinations for Democrats and 21 for Republicans.
FiveThirtyEight polling data still showed Harris in the lead against Trump at 48.5% to 46% as of Thursday and The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ indicated she had a 52% chance of winning the election.