Could Donald Trump win the popular vote on Tuesday but lose the presidency?
Some are saying it could happen. This was actually a theory back in 2016, though I didn't think it made much sense back then. This year is different. And it's worth discussing the fallout from such a scenario.
As we know, Trump is overperforming in key demographics, and has campaigned in states he's either not going to win (California and New York) or he's likely not going to win (New Mexico and Minnesota) and states that he could win but probably won't (Virginia and New Hampshire). He wouldn't have to win any of these states to win the election, but his efforts in these states could boost pro-Trump turnout in a way that doesn't win him any Electoral College votes, but adds to his national popular vote tally.
Only five elections have seen the popular vote winner lose the presidency. The more recent were the 2000 and 2016 elections. Al Gore lost to George W. Bush despite winning the popular vote by a slim 0.5-point margin. In 2004, John Kerry considered challenging the results of Ohio over baseless claims of rigged voting machines. He didn't, but there was a lot of irony in the fact that it was considered because, had he done so, there was no way he would have been able to overcome George W. Bush's national popular vote lead. But then, Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 while trailing Hillary Clinton by two points.
The 2000 and 2016 elections, having occurred so close to each other in the grand scheme of our nation's history, most definitely gave steam to the movement to abolish the Electoral College, particularly from the left because both times the winner of the election wound up being the Republican.
The 2020 election was another potential election where the Electoral College winner could have lost the election. A mere 50,000 votes between three battleground states decided that election, and Trump could have easily emerged victorious, even though Biden had a more substantial advantage in the national popular vote.
So, if by chance Trump wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College, what will happen next? Jeff Greenfield at Politico thinks that this could be the impetus for the abolishment of the Electoral College.
"Undoubtedly, the reaction would be explosive among Trump’s army of 'election deniers,' and there might be an attempt by his allies in state and local offices to try to muddy the waters and argue that the 'will of the people' should somehow prevail," he writes.
Assuming those efforts fail and Harris is inaugurated, we might see a whole new constituency furious at this system of choosing a president — including countless Americans who have no idea that when they vote for president they aren’t really voting for a candidate at all, but rather a slate of faceless electors.
As long as the electoral process always favors one party, there is no chance for anything like that movement from a half-century ago to be revived. But if November sees Trump deprived of the presidency despite a popular vote victory, the appetite for change might just take on a bipartisan flavor.
What Greenfield misses here is that if Kamala Harris somehow managed to win the Electoral College without winning the national popular vote, Democrats would suddenly love the Electoral College and see it as their savior from a second Trump term. Potentially, the movement to abolish the Electoral College could shift from being a largely left-wing cause to a right-wing cause, but frankly, I'm skeptical that conservatives would rally behind a movement to abolish the Electoral College the way leftists have.
Would I suddenly hate the Electoral College just because Trump lost the election despite winning the national popular vote? I'd be disappointed for sure, but I also know that abolishing the Electoral College would be a disaster and that it was inevitable that there'd be a time when the Electoral College didn't turn an election to my preferred result.
And I hope conservatives wouldn't jump on the bandwagon to abolish the Electoral College.
