If you thought that Republicans losing the House, the Senate, and a boatload of governorships was the worst thing that could happen on Election Day, think again.
It turns out the Democrats may have won something even more valuable: the power to change how America elects its president.
Not by amending the Constitution, of course. That would require persuading Americans in three-fourths of the states, including those “backwater” flyover states the Democrats disdain.
No, the Democrats have a much more convenient idea. It’s called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and if they can persuade a handful of newly captured state legislatures to sign on, the Electoral College as we know it could effectively disappear before the 2028 presidential election.
Here’s how the scheme works.
Under the Constitution, each state determines how to award its electoral votes. Nearly every state automatically awards them to whichever presidential candidate wins the statewide popular vote. The first candidate to collect 270 electoral votes wins the presidency. That’s the system our Founders created, and it’s been working just fine for more than two centuries.
But Democrats have spent years whining about the Electoral College, particularly after Republicans won the presidency in 2000 and 2016 without winning the popular vote. Of course, Bill Clinton didn’t win a majority of the popular vote in either 1992 or 1996—but shockingly, no outraged Democrats demanded reform back then. Today, however, any system that occasionally produces a Republican president must be defective.
Their solution is an ingenious little contraption called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Under the agreement, participating states pledge to award all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, regardless of who wins their own state.
The agreement only takes effect once enough states have joined to control at least 270 electoral votes.
For years, the compact has been gathering steam in overwhelmingly Democratic states. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have signed on, representing 222 electoral votes. That’s 48 votes short of the magic number.
But the math changed after this year’s blue wave. Democrats have gained complete control of state government in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. Together, those five states command 61 electoral votes. If all five join the compact, its membership would control 283 electoral votes—more than enough to put the scheme into operation.
And just like that, the Electoral College would effectively be tossed into the dustbin of history.
Consider what this would mean in practice.
Suppose the GOP candidate wins Pennsylvania in 2028. He campaigns across the state, wins the debates, and crushes his opponent on Election Day.
Congratulations! Pennsylvania’s electoral votes go to the Democrat anyway—provided the Democrat wins the national popular vote.
The voters of Pennsylvania could deliver a 100% landslide for the Republican, and their own state government would dutifully hand their state’s electoral votes to the loser anyway. So much for the quaint notion that a state’s electoral votes should reflect the wishes of its citizens.
The Founders deliberately established a republic in which states play an indispensable role in selecting the president. The Electoral College is an essential part of that arrangement, balancing the interests of large and small states and preventing presidential elections from becoming exclusively national contests.
To Democrats, this is just another unfortunate oversight by a bunch of dead white guys.
While the Constitution gives state legislatures authority over the appointment of electors, whether they can use that authority to enter a binding agreement that effectively replaces the Electoral College is a different question.
Many legal experts argue that the compact would violate the Constitution’s Compact Clause, which prohibits states from entering into certain agreements with each other without the approval of Congress. In any case, the scheme would undoubtedly trigger a constitutional showdown and extended court battle just as Americans prepare to elect their next president.
With the Supreme Court’s current conservative majority, the compact’s defenders would certainly face an uphill battle. But if Democrats win the White House and both houses of Congress in 2028, all bets are off. They could abolish the Senate filibuster, pack the Supreme Court with far-left justices, and transform the nation’s highest court into a rubber stamp for their scheme to gut the Electoral College.
Of course, even if successful, none of this would guarantee Democrats a permanent hold on the presidency. President Donald Trump won the popular vote in 2024, and Republicans could certainly win it again.
But Democrats have long salivated at the prospect of eliminating the Electoral College, believing that it would improve their presidential prospects.
Obstacles still remain, however. The five newly Democratic-controlled states must actually pass the legislation, and courts will have the final word.
Nevertheless, Republicans would be fools to dismiss the threat.
For years, Democrats have lectured Americans about the sacred importance of defending “our democracy.” Now, fresh from their midterm victories, they have an opportunity to fundamentally rewrite the rules governing presidential elections without securing the broad national consensus a constitutional amendment would require.
For the radical left, democracy is sacred right up until the moment it becomes inconvenient.
Republicans lost an election this year. Unless they’re paying attention, they could wake up in 2028 to discover that Democrats have changed the rules for every election that follows.
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