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Democrats Will Try to Abolish the Electoral College — After Trump Ironically Fuels Debate
“The Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the Popular Vote in future Elections. They want all future Presidential elections to be based exclusively on the Electoral College!” Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month. All presidential elections are based on the Electoral College, and Trump appeared to be unaware that Democrats have long wanted to abolish a system many consider anti-democratic and disenfranchising. As one law professor noted, it was originally designed more than two centuries ago “to empower southern white voters.”
U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) took the opportunity to egg on Republicans last week, asking if any of his GOP colleagues “want to help me lock in using the national popular vote rather than the electoral college to choose our presidents? Looks like it’s a crucial priority of President-elect Trump…”
Any of my @SenateGOP colleagues want to help me lock in using the national popular vote rather than the electoral college to choose our presidents? Looks like it’s a crucial priority of President-elect Trump… https://t.co/Ya8IsS0Mq9
— Senator Chris Coons (@ChrisCoons) December 10, 2024
“While there is so much wrong in incoming President Trump’s Electoral College Truth Social post,” U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) wrote, “one thing is true: it is long past time to abolish this anachronistic institution and guarantee that the winner of the popular vote takes office. I welcome President Trump’s support for a national popular vote and encourage Republicans to follow his lead and support this Amendment.”
Democrats in the House and Senate are now pushing to abolish the Electoral College, and they say they have a plan—namely, legislation—to do so. The Electoral College is “constitutionally mandated,” and legal experts, including the American Bar Association, say it would require a constitutional amendment to remove it.
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Congressman Cohen said in his statement he had “reintroduced a joint resolution to amend the Constitution by abolishing the Electoral College. The archaic vestige of a compromise with pro-slavery Southerners during the 18th century debate over the U.S. Constitution, the Electoral College can – and has, as recently as 2016 – thwarted the will of the American people by installing as president the loser of the popular vote.”
Five candidates have ascended to the presidency of the United States since its founding, despite losing the popular vote—three times in the 1800s, and, after more than a century, two times in the 2000s.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, on Monday wrote: “It is time to retire this 18th century invention that disenfranchises millions of Americans. The American people deserve to choose all their leaders.”
Popular vote losers became President in 1824, 1876, 1888, and in 2000 and 2016, as the Associated Press reported in 2020. The last two times, each was a Republican.
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court gave George W. Bush the win when it stopped a recount in Florida. Bush lost the popular vote. The Florida vote, which decided the Electoral College win, had been disputed by Vice President Al Gore, his Democratic opponent, over the now-infamous “hanging chads.”
“In a 5-4 vote, the justices also ruled that no alternative method of recount could be established in a timely manner. In effect, the latter ruling made Bush president. That 5-4 majority was composed of the nominees of Republican Presidents George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. The four in the minority had been nominated by three presidents: Republicans Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush, and Democrat Bill Clinton,” NPR reported in 2018. “Bush v. Gore has been regarded as one of the most politically consequential decisions in the history of the court, and one that damaged the court’s preferred image of itself as an institution far removed from everyday partisan politics.”
Trump won the Electoral College in 2016, as the AP explained four years later, “304 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton’s 227 — but lost the popular count by 2.8 million votes. Though the electorate has of course grown over the years, Trump lost the popular vote by a greater margin than anyone ever elected president.”
Critics of the Electoral College say it depresses the vote—Americans who live in traditionally or strongly blue or red states are less likely to vote because they believe their vote doesn’t matter. Since all but two states are “winner take all,” California, for example, effectively “votes” for the Democratic candidate, Texas for the Republican.
But if the national overall popular vote, and not each state, were “winner take all,” the only factor in deciding who wins the White House is who gets the most votes.
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“In an election, the person who gets the most votes should win. It’s that simple. No one’s vote should count for more based on where they live. The Electoral College is outdated and it’s undemocratic. It’s time to end it,” said U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI).
“Our democracy is at its strongest when everyone’s voice is heard,” wrote U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-VT), “and right now our elections aren’t as representative as they should be because of the outdated and flawed electoral college…”
Explaining just how close the vote was, The Cook Political Report‘s David Wasserman wrote on Monday: “With nearly every state’s vote count certified, Donald Trump captured about 77.3 million votes (49.81%) to Kamala Harris’ 75 million votes (48.33%) — a 1.48-point margin that’s less than half the 3.12-point margin Trump led by when we first launched our National Popular Vote Tracker two days after Election Day and the closest popular vote result since 2000.”
“The post-election ‘blue shift’ has become a quadrennial fact of life as urban areas and blue states with more liberal voting laws take longer to count provisional and vote-by-mail ballots than rural areas and red states. But it does mean Trump’s triumph now looks like slightly less of a ‘mandate’ than some pundits made it out to be in the immediate aftermath of Nov. 5.”
“In the end, the 2024 election was decided by 229,766 votes across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin out of about 155.2 million cast nationally, with Pennsylvania (a 1.7-point Trump margin) finishing as the ‘tipping point’ state in the Electoral College,” Wasserman stated.
CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere adds, “many things happened in the election, including an overall shift more toward Trump across a lot of demographic groups, but the difference in the election going to Trump over Harris in the Electoral College comes down to about 0.148% of the votes cast.”
Back in October, James Surowiecki, author of “The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations,” appeared to mock a Newsmax host advocating for the Electoral College. He wrote: “‘We have an electoral college so the minority can rule over the majority, just because of where they happen to live.'”
“We have an electoral college so the minority can rule over the majority, just because of where they happen to live.” https://t.co/SZcwvL90P0
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) October 14, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Inconvenient’: Trump Wants to Kill Daylight Saving Time
Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
