Enemies of the Electoral College

Editor’s note: the following is one of the essays from The “Charities” Influencing Elections: 2024 and Beyond, a special report soon to be released by the Capital Research Center. If you wish to receive a printed copy of the report, then please contact Julie Taylor at jtaylor@capitalresearch.org.

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Imagine a different election night 2024, one in which Donald Trump is staring at a historic landslide.

So, maybe the president says they’re all landslides. But in this case, by the Electoral College numbers, Trump approaches the landslide territory of Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt.

California normally takes days to tally votes, but in this scenario the state might not bother counting for the presidential race because its 54 electoral votes might be won by Trump before California can finish tabulating ballots. Trump will take California despite its former U.S. senator and attorney general Kamala Harris winning her home state with nearly 60 percent of the popular vote.

Trump would also take the electoral votes of New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and other blue states, despite Harris scoring convincing popular vote wins in those states as well.

All told, Trump wins 520 electoral votes to Harris’s 18.

This alternative world (which must sound great to MAGA supporters and surpasses even Trump’s most superlative hyperbole) is ironically sponsored by progressives and Democrats. Examples include groups aligned with the former Arabella Advisors,[i] Pierre Omidyar,[ii] the American Civil Liberties Union,[iii] the Soros network,[iv] the Tides Foundation,[v] bankroller Stephen Silberstein[vi] and his foundation,[vii] former Democratic Sen. Al Franken and former Attorney General Eric Holder.[viii]

At least, the theoretical outcome would have been brought to you by this cast of characters if they had gotten what they wanted regarding the allocation of electors during the last election.

They are among individuals and entities that have propped up the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would identify more with the left-leaning “resistance” than with MAGA.

If implemented, the NPV Compact would award all electoral votes from all states within the compact to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate won the popular vote within each individual state. The stated goal of this end-run around the U.S. Constitution is to avoid close elections where the “winner” of the currently irrelevant national popular vote ends up losing the election by failing to win the constitutionally crucial minimum majority of 270 Electoral College votes.

The alleged problem this supposedly solves has happened just five times over sixty American presidential elections, and only twice since the election of 1888. Notably, the beneficiaries in the two cases that anyone alive can remember (Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016) were both Republicans. It should be no surprise that the NPV movement is animated more by partisan goals than policy objectives.

The face of the movement has been National Popular Vote, a 501(c)(4) group that lobbies state legislatures to join the compact. [ix] But the movement is deeper than the NPV and its sister organizations. There have been other groups outside the NPV umbrella created to promote abolition of the electoral college; and still others, such as the League of Women Voters,[x] Fair Vote,[xi] and Common Cause,[xii] that support the compact, but as one of many legislative items.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has been driven mostly by Democrats perceiving an advantage from a popular vote. Though, the NPV organization has some outspoken Republican supporters.

The hypothetical 520 electoral votes won by Trump in the example above would have occurred only if the 18 states plus the District of Columbia that had joined the compact before the 2024 election had given their combined 209 electoral votes to the popular vote winner, which was Trump. This did not happen because the compact is not triggered until enough states join to equal 270 votes–a majority of the Electoral College. So, Kamala Harris ended up taking those NPV-endorsing states and kept the 209 electoral votes that her campaign had earned.

But NPV is getting closer to the 270 majority. With the addition of Virginia in April 2026 (yet another state won by Harris in 2024), the compact states now have a combined 222 electoral votes.

If the trigger hadn’t been required in 2024, and every state in the compact at the time had awarded the 209 electoral votes to Trump, then it would have caused that lopsided Trump triumph that–in all fairness–would not have been reflective of the current political environment. Love Trump or hate him, no one would accuse him of being such a unifier that he deserved a 520-18 electoral vote mandate.

And, whatever you say about Harris, any candidate who legitimately wins 226 electoral votes in the traditional Electoral College doesn’t really deserve to be cast into the dustbin of history alongside Walter Mondale and Alf Landon, though that’s what the compact would have done if in effect for 2024.

At the end of the day, the benefit of the Electoral College is that it preserves a balance for large and small states and ensures a level of state power over the executive branch.

Compact champions on the left who find Trump insufferable ought to imagine what his bravado might have been like if he could have claimed 520 electoral votes. But that potential scenario doesn’t seem to have slowed down the NPV movement.

Although a popular vote election obviously wouldn’t advantage either political party and the movement is ostensibly nonpartisan, only blue states have joined the compact so far. Moreover, most of the big money behind the NPV movement has come from institutional donors on the left.

Self-inflicted electoral harm

Being a battleground is good for a state’s bottom line, since it brings people and money, which means revenue. That’s something a governor and lawmakers should care about.

Thanks to Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, the national popular vote compact is just 48 electoral votes shy of going into effect. Spanberger signed an NPV bill from the Democratic legislature in April. [xiii] At this point, 19 states and the District of Columbia have joined the compact, and all of them have voted for the Democrat in each presidential election going back to 2008.

Spanberger told WFXR, “This is a very straightforward, long-term plan to get us to a point where the United States is frankly what most people think it is, which is a place where every person’s vote counts the same as every other person’s vote.” [xiv]

“Fake Moderate Spanberger just signed a bill to render Virginians’ vote for president NULL AND VOID!” responded the Virginia Republican Party on X/Twitter.[xv]

“Virginia’s Electoral College votes will go to the winner of the national popular vote – no matter who wins the popular vote in our Commonwealth,” added the Virginia GOP. “This is an unconstitutional assault on our democracy.”

Despite inching closer, the compact is not likely to go into effect soon because the movement is running out of blue states to sign up. But red states have turned blue and blue states red over the decades.

This is an extremely short-sighted move for Virginia, which has the potential to be a swing state–drawing campaign visits from presidential candidates, and increased media presence. Being a battleground is good for a state’s bottom line, since it brings people and money, which means revenue. That’s something a governor and lawmakers should care about.

Take a look at the numbers.

Virginia is a state that Harris carried by just five percentage points in the last election, compared to 2020 when Joe Biden carried the state by ten. Some pre-election polls had it as close as two points, and Trump thought it was worth his time to stump in the Old Dominion.

Also, former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin left office with a favorable reputation among commonwealth voters, and he’s been mentioned as someone who could be on a national ticket in 2028. That would make the state even more competitive.

Virginia also has an important place in the history of the American republic. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe saw the wisdom of the Electoral College.

Does Spanberger think she knows better?

In 2019, then-Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, vetoed a bill from the Democratic legislature to join the national popular vote compact, recognizing the relatively small state’s place as a battleground. He said,[xvi] “In cases like this, where Nevada’s interests could diverge from the interests of large states, I will always stand up for Nevada.”

Sisolak, as governor, placed his state above the perceived interests of his party. Spanberger has thus far been unable to do that despite campaigning as a centrist.

Then there’s Maine, one of two states where electoral voters are divided by congressional district (the other being Nebraska). Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, recognized that the split electoral votes allowed Maine to punch above its weight in a presidential race when it came to drawing candidates to campaign in the state. Though seeing the headwinds in her party, she didn’t sign or veto the NPV bill, allowing it to become law without her signature.

“Opponents have raised legitimate questions about whether presidential candidates would want to visit Maine knowing that, under a winner-take-all system, their chance to win our electoral votes declines and, as a result, their time would be better spent elsewhere,” Mills said in an April 2024 statement. [xvii]

Leading the pack

There is an industry of nonprofits devoted to this end-run around the Electoral College.

Lottery scratch-card inventor John Koza and election lawyer Barry Fadem, both Democrats, launched the Lafayette, California-based National Popular Vote in 2006 to lobby state legislatures to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which at the time was merely an academic ideal. [xviii]

There is an industry of nonprofits devoted to this end-run around the Electoral College. The Institute for Research on Presidential Elections is a 501(c)(3) education arm for NPV. [xix] Another group, Conservatives for National Popular Vote, was also launched with some of the same personnel. [xx]

National Popular Vote’s most recent publicly available IRS filing, covering 2024, shows $1.48 million in revenue, $1.44 million in expenditures, and $99,884 in net assets. [xxi]

NPV issued a $20,000 grant to Maine Citizens for Clean Elections in 2024. Maine entered the compact that year. [xxii]

In 2024, the Democracy Fund Voice,[xxiii] a left-of-center group within the philanthropy network of eBay chairman and founder Pierre Omidyar,[xxiv] contributed $150,000 to National Popular Vote according to the Democracy Fund Voice IRS filing.[xxv] Omidyar founded Democracy Fund Voice as the 501(c)(4) advocacy arm to the Democracy Fund, a 501(c)(3). [xxvi] The organization is mostly funded by Omidyar, whose reported net worth is more than $10.5 billion, according to Forbes.[xxvii]

In 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union, despite its ostensible mission to defend the Constitution, gave $24,000[xxviii] to National Popular Vote’s effort to undermine the Constitution’s primary method for electing presidents. The ACLU’s IRS filing says the funding was for “design, sampling, fieldwork, data collection, analysis, and presentation of results of a poll on National Popular Vote policy.”

Koza was the primary funder of the movement early on. He was the co-founder and CEO of Scientific Games, Inc. He and Fadem were active in the 1980s in lobbying state legislatures to adopt state lotteries through ballot initiatives. They’ve done much the same thing with the popular vote idea–though only one state has put it to the voters.

The concept itself began after George W. Bush’s win over Al Gore in 2000, in which Gore won the popular vote by half a percentage point and Bush narrowly won the Electoral College. Law professor Robert Bennett of Northwestern University wrote a 2001 academic paper titled “Popular Election of a President Without a Constitutional Amendment,” providing the framework for the compact. After that, an article by Akhil and Vikram Amar, brothers who were professors at Yale Law and University of California Hastings College of Law respectively, argued in favor of the interstate compact.

It took five years for Koza and Fadem to put political muscle behind it. The two co-wrote the book Every Vote Equal in 2006, to promote the proposal, then started National Popular Vote to lobby for the plan shortly after.

Koza helped seed the National Popular Vote nonprofit with his own money and some from Paychex billionaire Tom Golisano. Stephen M. Silberstein, who in 1978 founded computer software company Innovative Interfaces Inc., also became a major donor and serves on the board of NPV.

Koza is board chair of NPV. He is also the chief financial officer and the board treasurer for the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections.[xxix]

Fadem, the election lawyer and co-author with Koza of Every Vote Equal, is the president of National Popular Vote. Fadem is a partner in the law firm of Fadem & Associates in Lafayette, California, and specializes in campaign and election law.

Saul Anuzis is the chief of staff for National Popular Vote. [xxx] He is president of 60 Plus, a conservative seniors organization. [xxxi] He is a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, has worked for Newt Gingrich at American Solutions, and for Jack Kemp’s 1988 presidential campaign. Anuzis was also an advisor to the Ted Cruz 2016 presidential campaign.

Matthew Schweich is the campaign manager for NPV. Separately, he is the deputy director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates for legalizing cannabis at both the state and federal level. [xxxii]

Members of the NPV advisory board include Al Franken, a comedian who resigned from the U.S. Senate over a sexual harassment scandal, former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder, anti-Trump former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, and Obama administration Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. [xxxiii]

Educating against the college

” … the most viable campaign to change how Americans choose their leader is being waged at booze-soaked junkets in luxury hotels around the country and even abroad, as an obscure entity called the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections peddles a controversial idea …” —Politico

The Institute for Research on Presidential Elections, or IRPE, is the 501(c)(3) education arm of National Popular Vote and was also launched in 2006 along with NPV. [xxxiv] Also founded by Koza, the organization has the same leadership as NPV. Unlike the NPV, which lobbies for states to join the compact, the institute is prohibited under tax law from advocating a vote in favor of the compact. So, it can only produce information and research supporting its cause.

A 2017 Politico article claimed that if the Electoral College is scrapped, it won’t come from a constitutional amendment in Congress.

“Instead, the most viable campaign to change how Americans choose their leader is being waged at booze-soaked junkets in luxury hotels around the country and even abroad, as an obscure entity called the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections peddles a controversial idea: that state legislatures can put the popular-vote winner in the White House,” reported Politico.

The IRPE reported revenue of $684,178 for 2024, the most recent year that an IRS filing is available, and $883,693 in expenditures. [xxxv] (The obvious net revenue loss has been a recurring feature for most of IRPE’s annual IRS filings, but the net asset deficits this has created have been kept in check by new donations the following year.) [xxxvi]

During 2023,[xxxvii] IRPE contributed $40,000 to Demand Progress Education Fund, the sister organization to Demand Progress Action and Demand Progress PAC. [xxxviii] According to the education fund’s website, it was a project of the New Venture Fund until 2022. [xxxix] The New Venture Fund was the largest 501(c)(3) organization in the former Arabella Advisors[xl] network, now known as Sunflower Services.[xli]

A longstanding donor to the popular vote cause, the Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation[xlii] contributed $140,000 to the IRPE in 2024. [xliii] That same year, the Coit Family Foundation, a 501(c)(3) grant maker in Walnut Creek, California, contributed $75,000 to the IRPE; [xliv] and one or more of the account holders at the Vanguard Charitable Fund[xlv] donated a total of $30,000. [xlvi]

Patrick Rosenstiel is the chairman of the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections and has been an NPV spokesman. [xlvii] He was the chairman of the 1996 Steve Forbes presidential campaign and leads the law firm Ainsley-Shea. He’s the former executive director of the Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity.

Reaching for the right

NPV supporters know they’ll need red states to hit the 270 electoral votes and have hired numerous Republicans to make the case.

So far, only blue states, most of which have a Democratic governor and Democratic-controlled House and Senate, have joined the compact. As mentioned, every state which has thus far joined the compact voted for Harris in the last election.

NPV supporters know they’ll need red states to hit the 270 electoral votes and have hired numerous Republicans to make the case. The hierarchy of the NVP includes several Republicans, including Anuzis, Rosenstiel, and former California state Sen. Ray Haynes, a former national chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council.[xlviii]

It’s notable that in past years, a bill to join the compact has passed one legislative chamber of red-leaning states such as Arkansas, North Carolina, and Oklahoma, as well as the battleground states of Michigan and Arizona.

So, it’s an achievable goal.

In February 2020, the Conservatives for National Popular Vote was established, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, and run by Rosenstiel. The group hasn’t been active, with no updated posts on its website since 2023. It doesn’t have tax exempt status, and it’s not clear if it’s a sister organization to NPV. [xlix]

But it was an attempt to reach out to conservatives.

The group’s website features a comment from President Donald Trump speaking on Fox & Friends and asserting that, “I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.” Conservatives for NPV contend America is a center-right country, and that conservatives would turn out in bigger numbers under a popular vote system in states such as California or Massachusetts, where they might feel their votes don’t currently count in a presidential election under the Electoral College system.

Conservatives for National Popular Vote also notes that fewer than 60,000 votes could have shifted Ohio in 2004 and given John Kerry the presidency despite George W. Bush’s 3 million vote national victory. [l] The group also contends that the population of the nation’s 100 largest cities is roughly equal to the population of rural America, which supposedly means that a national popular vote election wouldn’t advantage the urban areas.

After Spanberger signed the NPV measure in Virginia, Rosenstiel said it was one time that she got it right.

“I believe that our ideas are better, more aligned with most voters, and can win presidential elections. President Donald Trump bolstered this belief when he won the national popular vote in 2024,” Rosenstiel wrote in an April Washington Examiner op-ed. He argued the compact preserves the Electoral College but recognizes that the Constitution gives states plenary authority to award electors. [li]

“The national popular vote will force the GOP to campaign in every precinct and is essential to building and maintaining a center-right majority in the United States,” he added.

Big left donors to ballot initiative

When the compact was on the ballot in Colorado in 2020, the North Fund, a lobbying group affiliated with the former Arabella Advisors [ . . ] contributed $250,000 to the initiative, according to Ballotpedia. Another Arabella appendage, the Sixteen Thirty Fund spent $147,346 on getting Colorado into the compact . . .

Neither National Popular Vote nor the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections fully disclose their donors and aren’t required to under the laws governing c3 and c4 groups. But a 2020 referendum in Colorado offers a strong glimpse of the organizations and individuals backing the effort.

When the compact was on the ballot in Colorado in 2020, the North Fund,[lii] a lobbying group affiliated with the former Arabella Advisors (now known as Sunflower Services), contributed $250,000[liii] to the initiative, according to Ballotpedia. Another Arabella appendage, the Sixteen Thirty Fund[liv] spent $147,346 on getting Colorado into the compact, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office[lv]

Stephen Silberstein, the NPV board member and head of the foundation in his name that has contributed hefty amounts to the NPV and IPRE organizations, also gave $500,000 to the Colorado ballot initiative, the Colorado Sun reported.[lvi] Koza contributed $95,015 to the effort, according to OpenSecrets. These donations surpassed National Popular Vote itself, which donated $69,579 to get a “Yes” vote on the ballot measure. [lvii]

Additionally, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees,[lviii] a typically left-leaning government employee union, gave $50,000.[lix]

The measure passed with just 52 percent, despite supporters outspending opponents $5.4 million to $1.7 million in a solidly blue state. It’s reason enough to think that a big chunk of the public sees the virtue of keeping the Electoral College and retaining a stronger electoral voice for the individual states.

NPV supporters attempted to get a ballot initiative in Michigan, but were unsuccessful.[lx] Still a look at the donors to the Michigan effort shows support for the change came heavily from donors in coastal areas, as the Capital Research Center previously reported.[lxi] Much like Nevada, why would Michigan want to give up its privileged spot as a battleground that attracts presidential candidates and national media every four years?

Donors to the Michigan effort included Koza, a resident of California, who gave $259,000. Sarah O’Neill, the daughter-in-law[lxii] of Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger, contributed $50,000 from New York City. Joseph Steinberg, a New York investment banker, gave $40,000. Alex Rigopulos, a billionaire residing in Massachusetts who brought the world Guitar Hero, contributed $25,000, as did Dagmar Dolby, California’s billionaire heiress of the Dolby fortune.

Before the compact concept

The People’s Choice for President Institute, an affiliated 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit, was also created after the 2016 election and has reported receiving a combined total of just less than $1.2 million through 2024 . . .

One of the first advocates for ditching the Electoral College for a popular vote is the People’s Choice for President. Also a 501(c)(4), the group was founded in 2000, predating the NPV, and even the concept of an interstate compact.

People’s Choice does not appear to have filed a full IRS report[lxiii] since 2020, when it reported just $5,000 total revenue, and did not report receiving any revenue for nine of the seventeen years between 2004 and 2020.

The last major donation year was 2017, when the group reported receiving a little more than $1 million. This was the year right after Donald Trump won the electoral college without winning a popular vote plurality. Perhaps not coincidentally, there are no publicly available full IRS filings from People’s Choice for 2015 and 2016, implying little revenue received and very limited activity during those years.

The People’s Choice for President Institute, an affiliated 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit, was also created after the 2016 election and has reported receiving a combined total of just less than $1.2 million through 2024, the last year for which a full IRS filing is available. An individual named Sam George is listed as the principal officer of both groups on their most recently available tax documents. [lxiv]

When active, People’s Choice for President listed its mission as “changing the method of electing the President from an electoral college to a direct election.”

But recent activity has been sparse. The last publicly available IRS report for the People’s Choice for President Institute, covering 2024, is an IRS Form 990EZ, which is filed by small nonprofits with limited annual revenue and assets. It reports just $103,470 revenue collected for the year, expenses of $115,054 and net assets of $297,753. [lxv]

The last publicly available full IRS filing for People’s Choice for President, covering 2020,[lxvi] reports grants of $10,000 to National Popular Vote and $100,000 to America’s Votes,[lxvii] a progressive group that supports expansion of voting access. The combined $110,000 in grants was 38 percent of the group’s total reported annual expenses of $286,730. This was a year when the group reported only $5,000 total revenue, and zero revenue for the two preceding years.

Both groups reported having no website in their respective, most recently available, IRS filings.

Controversial PAC

The PAC describes the Electoral College as “a system that was created nearly 240 years ago with a compromise to ensure power remained in the hands of wealthy landowners to placate an inherently evil system of slavery.”

At least rhetorically, National Popular Vote and its affiliate organizations don’t want to get rid of the Electoral College, which would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Rather, the groups say that state legislatures have wide latitude within the U.S. Constitution to take plenary authority in determining how electoral votes are awarded.

However, other groups make no bones about wanting to abolish the Electoral College. In fact, it’s in the name of a political action committee.

The Abolish the Electoral College PAC’s website says it’s “a grassroots organization dedicated to mobilizing supporters, electing candidates, and partnering with impactful organizations that work to support reform and abolishment of the Electoral College.” [lxviii]

The PAC describes the Electoral College as “a system that was created nearly 240 years ago with a compromise to ensure power remained in the hands of wealthy landowners to placate an inherently evil system of slavery.”

Rory Steele was listed as the treasurer of the Abolish the Electoral College PAC in the 2022 cycle. [lxix] He was reportedly a former campaign manager for the 2016 Senate campaign of Kamala Harris but was replaced in a campaign staff shakeup. [lxx]

In the 2024 cycle,[lxxi] Christopher Koob[lxxii] was listed as treasurer of the Abolish the Electoral College PAC. Koob was also listed[lxxiii] as the treasurer of the REV UP PAC,[lxxiv] which advocates for turning out the vote of disabled people.

The PAC’s website makes this claim: “Abolish the Electoral College endorses the position that the quickest way to achieve replacement of the Electoral College is to focus on passage of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.”

It continues: “Abolish the Electoral College will seek out and support candidates at all levels of our government, but especially candidates and elected leaders in our state legislative bodies, who support passage of the NPVIC.”

Critics say otherwise.

According to an October 2021 investigative piece by Sludge,[lxxv] the Abolish the Electoral College PAC raised more than $1 million and donated only $2,500 to candidates. The remaining amount went to salaries.

A “Note from the AEC Team”[lxxvi] posted on the website in January 2022 didn’t directly mention the Sludge article, but stressed the PAC that was founded in 2019 was investing in infrastructure for the long fight:

“Over 80% of the resources raised from your contributions have gone directly to build and support infrastructure and programmatic expenses that further our mission of electoral change and voting rights reform,” the note to supporters said. “As this infrastructure becomes more solidified and efficient we will drive administrative expenses and costs even lower so that an even larger percentage of our donor contributions go directly to successful advocacy and direct programmatic expenses.”

The note continued: “We focused on state legislative candidates in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and contributed to a successful initiative campaign in Colorado that affirms the Colorado legislature’s decision to support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.”

In 2024, the Abolish the Electoral College PAC contributed $25,000[lxxvii] to the State Democracy Defenders PAC[lxxviii] and $16,000 to the For the Majority PAC, both Democratic political action committees, according to Open Secrets[lxxix] which tracks money in politics. During that same election cycle the PAC contributed $5,000 to the campaign of Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-OR), $2,000 to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and $500 to Rep. Greg Landsman, (D-OH).

The PAC raised $773,310 and spent $773,399. That’s less than the 2022 cycle, when it raised $787,663 and spent $938,138. In the 2020 cycle, the PAC brought in $795,761 in donations, and spent $598,939. The larger donors to Abolish the Electoral College haven’t been major political players.

‘Barrier to democracy’

For all practical purposes, presidential elections do reflect the will of the majority. Only five presidents were elected without winning the popular vote–and even that oversimplifies the matter.

The National Popular Voter Interstate Compact only had nominal success for the first 10 years of its campaign, but was supercharged after Trump beat Hillary Clinton, with blue states jumping on board.

The belief on the left was that it would do away with the GOP’s built-in advantage in the Electoral College. Never mind that before the 2016 election experts such as the Cook Political Report said Democrats started off with a near-automatic 242 electoral votes in their pocket, [lxxx] and George Will fretted this “blue wall” threatened the existence of the Republican Party. [lxxxi]

For all practical purposes, presidential elections do reflect the will of the majority. Only five presidents were elected without winning the popular vote–and even that oversimplifies the matter.

The presidential election of 1824 was the first instance of a popular vote “winner” losing the Electoral College. But popular voting was a new concept, and many states still weren’t doing it. Electoral vote winner (and thus) President John Quincy Adams might have also carried the popular vote if the state of New York allowed for it that year.

The 1876 election was fraught with so much fraud and voter suppression in the South that it’s difficult to discern who won the contested states. The 1888 contest that saw Benjamin Harrison defeat incumbent Grover Cleveland also saw Harrison win a much larger geographic area. The 2000 election probably offers no real lessons because it was so close and so unusual.

The overwhelming majority of Clinton’s 2.9 million national popular vote margin in 2016 could have been swallowed up within just her 4.3 million vote edge in California. The Electoral College was designed to prevent large states from overwhelming the will of the rest of the country and it performed exactly as intended.

The Electoral College might be much like gerrymandering, or perhaps the Senate filibuster, with the righteous indignation depending on whose ox is being gored. Despite the history of Rutherford B. Hayes, Harrison, Bush, and Trump, eventually a Republican is likely to come out on the short end–prompting many in the GOP to demand its demise, while Democrats celebrate it.

The benefit of the Electoral College is that it preserves a balance for large and small states and ensures a level of state power over the executive branch.

***

Endnotes

[i] “Arabella Advisors.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/for-profit/arabella-advisors/.

[ii] “Pierre Omidyar.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/person/pierre-omidyar/.

[iii] “American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/american-civil-liberties-union-aclu/.

[iv] “Soros Network / Open Society Network.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/organization/soros-network-open-society-network/

[v] “Tides Foundation.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/tides-foundation/.

[vi] “Stephen Silberstein.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/person/stephen-silberstein./

[vii] “Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/stephen-m-silberstein-foundation/.

[viii] “Eric Holder.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/person/eric-holder/.

[ix] “National Popular Vote.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-popular-vote/.

[x] “League of Women Voters.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/league-of-women-voters/.

[xi] “FairVote.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/fairvote/.

[xii] “Common Cause.” InfluenceWatch. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/common-cause/.

[xiii] Callum Sutherland and Chantelle Lee. “U.S. Takes Step Closer to Popular Vote for Presidential Elections.” TIME, April 15, 2026. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://time.com/article/2026/04/15/popular-vote-state-compact-virginia-spanberger-electoral-college/.

[xiv] Paul Hess. “Virginia Becomes 18th State to Join National Vote Interstate Compact.” WFXR, April 14, 2026. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://www.wfxrtv.com/news/your-local-election-hq/virginia-becomes-18th-state-to-join-national-vote-interstate-compact/.

[xv] “VA GOP.” X (formerly Twitter), July 11, 2025. Accessed February 10, 2026. https://x.com/VA_GOP/status/2044069054965834137.

[xvi] Ryan Tarinelli. “Nevada Governor Vetoes National Popular Vote Compact.” Associated Press, accessed February 10, 2026. https://apnews.com/united-states-presidential-election-general-news-political-news-a654f94f03a5445999c6111d0e5eb873.

[xvii] Janet Mills, “Governor Mills Allows National Popular Vote Legislation to Become Law Without Her Signature,” Office of Governor Janet T. Mills, April 15, 2024, https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/news/governor-mills-allows-national-popular-vote-legislation-become-law-without-her-signature-2024. (maine.gov).

[xviii] “National Popular Vote (NPV),” InfluenceWatch, accessed May 27, 2026, https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-popular-vote/.

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Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/enemies-of-the-electoral-college/