Polls, campaign stops suggest reasons to trade Electoral College for popular vote

Last week’s release of Washington presidential polls, coupled with repeated reports of the candidates campaigning in just a handful of counties in three “swing” states, generated thoughts of something I never before contemplated.

That is, getting rid of the Electoral College in favor of electing a president by the popular vote. The strict constitutional constructionist in me might be giving way to the need for more regional respect and less national chaos.

Not surprisingly, two recent presidential polls in Washington have Vice President Kamala Harris far ahead of former President Donald Trump. A Seattle Times poll has Harris at 57% to Trump at 35%. The Crosscut-Elway Poll for Cascade Media/PBS has it nearly identical at Harris 57% and Trump 32%.

Idaho is something of a mirror image, with Trump up about 2-to-1, although most polling stopped before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. It’s possible that no one seriously thought about polling since then because the Gem State hasn’t backed a Democrat for president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, who managed to beat Barry Goldwater by less than 6,000 votes.

A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won Washington since Ronald Reagan’s re-election bid in 1984, so the recent Harris-Trump results are about as surprising as Gonzaga University men’s basketball showing up in the AP preseason rankings. The horse race numbers briefly pass for news, and are about as likely to match the final election results as the final AP poll will match the preseason picks.

That year, 1984, was something of a high-water mark for the national campaigns coming to Spokane.

First Lady Nancy Reagan, the president’s daughter Maureen Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Democratic nominee Walter Mondale, his wife Joan Mondale and Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, the Democrat’s veep pick, all came to the Lilac City between Labor Day and Election Day. In later campaign cycles, the flow of candidate visits began to dwindle, until the spigot was turned down to an occasional drip.

The polling combined with the history is a reason neither campaign has spent much time in Washington. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, made a trip to Seattle earlier this month, but it was to follow the national Democrats’ long-established practice of using the tech suburbs as an ATM for campaign money. No public events to pack supporters into a park, a convention center or a hotel lobby and fire them up for the general election. No chances for a town hall with local voters or an interview with local journalists to address regional issues like salmon, dams, nuclear waste cleanup or closing military bases.

The analysis of polling and history is repeated in all 50 states, generating the “battleground” states where the Electoral College votes are believed to be up for grabs. When you see Harris or Trump at large campaign events over the next two weeks, they’re likely to be in a handful of “key” counties in Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin, although they might make quick trips to North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona or Nevada.

While the Electoral College is a unique and somewhat fascinating invention that helped the original 13 states form a more perfect union, today it creates winners and losers among the 50 states each presidential cycle. Without it, there would be no battleground states because there would be a battle in each state to get the most votes possible.

Republicans would not automatically write off “blue” states like Washington, California or New York, and Democrats wouldn’t ignore “red” states like Idaho, Texas or Florida. In fact, there would be no blue or red states, because all states are actually some shade of purple. Think of it as swapping out a basic Crayola box that has just red and blue crayons for a deluxe box with multiple options for violet, red violet and blue violet. (If you don’t get the reference, ask your kids or grandkids.)

Get Out The Vote efforts would be critical nationwide, not just critical in a handful of counties in a few states. Republican candidates would look to maximize the traditional red areas in all states and Democrats would do the same for blue areas.

It’s really basic math. Under the Electoral College, a candidate gets all the electors from most states whether they win a state by one vote or 1 million.

With the popular vote, winning a state would get them only the votes they walk away with.

Consider: This year, Washington should have about 5 million registered voters by Election Day, and if turnout is normal, about 4 million return their ballots. Right now, it’s not really worth the time or money for the Trump campaign to try to go from 37% to 42% of the vote because he’ll lose all 12 electoral votes either way. But under a national popular vote system, if he could max out the vote in Eastern Washington and rural or suburban areas outside Pugetopolis, picking up an extra 5% would represent 100,000 votes added to his national total. Similarly, Harris has no real incentive to push more voters to the polls in Washington or any other blue state because it won’t matter if she wins by a little or a lot.

But bigger victory margins and smaller losing margins in all 50 states would matter under a national popular vote system.

Smaller states, which tend to like their disproportionate clout in the Electoral College, would have to be persuaded to trade that for the prospect of more attention from candidates. Large states that go reliably for one party also might balk if that party has overwhelming control over the Legislature. Either might be swayed by pointing out the money being spent by the presidential campaigns on ads, campaign workers and polls in this year’s battleground states compared to what’s being spent in theirs.

As an added bonus, it would save us the quadrennial reports on the workings of the Electoral College, how 270 is the magic number to win, what states are “in play” with the number of electors they have and the various combinations to get to or past that magic number. It also would save us the long explanations why Nebraska and Maine don’t award all their electors to the candidate who wins the popular vote and what would happen if each candidate winds up with 269.

It wouldn’t necessarily end complaints by losers, but it would make claims more difficult to back up. In 2020, the margin between Biden and Trump in the six most-contested states totaled about 157,000 votes. That was a steep hill to climb, but nowhere near the mountain created by the 7 million vote margin in the popular vote.