Poll: 45 percent of voters want to get rid of Electoral College

A Morning Consult/Politico poll shows 40 percent of people want to keep the Electoral College system as it currently exists. The Electoral College is set to cast votes Monday.

According to the poll, 69 percent of Democrats want to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote. Democratic candidates have twice won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College in presidential elections this century as both Al Gore, in 2000, and Hillary Clinton this year were defeated despite receiving more votes than President George W. Bush and President-elect Trump, respectively.

Accordingly, 62 percent of Republicans want to keep the Electoral College in its current state.

(AP Photo)

Divisions were also evident based on where a respondent lived, as 53 percent of urban voters wanted to get rid of the Electoral College and 45 percent of rural voters want to keep it. Suburban voters were split 43 percent in favor of eliminating the Electoral College and 45 percent in favor of keeping.

Geographically, 51 percent of voters in the Northeast and 48 percent of voters in the West want to eliminate the Electoral College, which was more popular in the South and Midwest. In the South and in the Midwest, 42 percent of voters want to eliminate the Electoral College.

While there have been many discussions about faithless electors not voting for the candidate their state favored in the election, there is not much support for doing so: 34 percent of voters think the electors shouldn’t be bound by their state’s vote. Forty-six percent of those polled think electors should be bound by their state’s vote, regardless of how they feel about their candidate.

Republicans were more likely to favor electors being bound by their state’s vote than Democrats.

The survey polled 2,000 registered voters from Dec. 15-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.