A new Gallup poll shows that the Electoral College is rising in popularity. There’s now a statistical tie between the number of Americans who prefer the current system to electing the president through a nationwide popular vote. About 47 percent of Americans prefer the current system, up from 35 percent who said the same in 2011.
There is, however, a growing partisan divide: About 81 percent of Democrats want a popular vote, up from 69 percent in 2011. A small majority of Republicans preferred a popular vote in 2011, but that’s dropped dramatically to 19 percent today.
Regardless of the partisan divide, the rising popularity is one of several reasons the Electoral College isn’t going anywhere.
The sharp rise in the number of Democrats who prefer a popular vote is probably just a temporary backlash over the 2016 election, with the sting of 2000 still felt by some. But, as one liberal friend pointed out, deep-blue California and New York still give Democrats a fairly sizeable advantage in the Electoral College.
Hillary Clinton won California by almost 30 percentage points and New York by more than 20 points. They’re not turning red anytime soon. Combined, they get the Democratic candidate about one-third of the way to 270 electoral votes.
It’s also important to note what it would take to switch to the popular vote: Two-thirds of both chambers of Congress would have to propose a constitutional amendment, then three-fourths of the states would have to ratify it.
As the Gallup poll noted, only 19 percent of Republicans want a popular vote. Both chambers of Congress are controlled by Republicans, as are both legislative chambers in 32 states. In short, Republicans have a lot of power and little desire for the popular vote.
Even if the ideological separation weren’t so large, the Electoral College and the constitutional amendment process are both designed to empower small states. The 12 largest states in the country combine for more than half the population, but the other 38 states could amend the Constitution as they pleased without them.
Small states love the Electoral College because it gives their voters an outsized influence. In Wyoming, there are 188,000 people per electoral vote. In California, it’s 739,000. Sure, politicians would rather get California’s electoral votes, but the power of a single voter is a lot higher in Wyoming.
And as California drifts farther away ideologically from the rest of the country, the Electoral College keeps the state’s liberal ambitions for the rest of the country in check. As my colleague Michael Barone noted, “ditching [the] Electoral College would allow California to impose imperial rule on a colonial America.” Small states know this, and they’re not going to let it happen anytime soon.
Jason Russell is the contributors editor for the Washington Examiner.
