Republicans Should Abolish the Electoral College

The narrative on the Electoral College is shifting

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Since the 2000 election, Republicans have won the presidency 3 times. However, only once did they win the popular vote (Bush in 2004). This means that for 8 of 12 years that a Republican president has served, they did not actually get the vote of more Americans.

Or to put it another way, the majority of Americans only voted for the GOP in 1 out of the last 6 elections, yet a Republican has been in office for 3 out of 6 opportunities.

To many outsiders, this seems absurd, probably because it is.

Mention getting rid of the Electoral College to a crowd of people and you are guaranteed to get an education the situation from a 30 some-thing Libertarian or Republican who took a political science course in Junior College. He will mention state's rights and how it ensures that you know, the majority doesn’t control the small states.

Or something like that.

But this article isn't about the merits of the Electoral College, this article is about how if the GOP wants to win in the future, they need to kill the EC. Now, like right now, because they are in trouble.

But why?

The answer is, well, complicated.

But let's start with a historical example, the state of Colorado (my home). Growing up Colorado was DEEP red, prior to Obama, the only Democrat to win at Mile High since the ’60s was Clinton in ’92. But Obama was able to swing my home state from red, to blue, just touching purple for a moment.

And the 2020 election in Colorado? It wasn’t close, and the GOP lost a senator too. In the next election, CO will be getting 10 EC votes instead of 9.

What happened in Colorado? Easy, people moved here from out of state. Some from California, some from Texas, some from the midwest, many looking for mountains and the outdoors. As Colorado grew it became blue.

But is Colorado an outlier? No.

Other examples like Colorado include Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, all of which have begun to turn from red to purple, if not blue. But none of those states matter so much, where the GOP…