Missed the Mark: Why Pollsters Misjudged the 2024 Election Part 2

A second lesson of 2024 rings the death knell of the National Popular Vote (NPV) Initiative or Compact, intended by its supporters to avoid election “inversions” in which the presidential candidate winning the popular vote loses in the Electoral College. The compact was first introduced in 2006 but reinvigorated by Donald Trump’s 2016 defeat of Hillary Clinton.

Implementation of the compact requires acceptance by states accounting collectively for at least 270 (a simple majority) of the nation’s 538 electoral votes. Those electoral votes are allocated across states by their respective numbers of U.S. senators (two) plus delegates to the U.S. House of Representatives (at least one per state). Although not a state, the District of Columbia is treated as if it were and casts three electoral votes.

If agreed to by the required number of states, the compact’s signatories must cast their Electoral College votes for the candidate who wins a plurality (the largest percentage) of the national popular vote, even if, as often happens with three or more presidential candidates, the popular vote winner is preferred by fewer than half of the voters who turn out nationwide on Election Day. Although electoral vote ties are possible (the presidential election of 1800 is a case in point), the Electoral College introduces an element of decisiveness into elections to the executive branch of the U.S. federal government. It also prevents the most populous U.S. states (now California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas) from routinely overriding the presidential preferences of the citizens of the smaller states.

Had it been in effect on November 5, 2024, the compact would have forced deep-blue states like California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington to support Donald Trump when the Electoral College votes are cast on December 17, 2024. It would have overruled those voters’ presidential preferences and possibly triggered civil unrest. 

Only five times in U.S. history has the national popular vote winner lost in the Electoral College. A short-term political gain for Hillary Clinton in 2016 would have been disastrous for the Democrats in 2024, yielding far fewer electoral votes than the 226 expected to be cast next month for sitting Vice President Kamala Harris.

Be careful what you wish for. The Electoral College is a feature of the U.S. constitutional republic, not a bug. It was adopted in 1787 to avoid the “tyranny of the majority” the Founders feared above all. Indeed, the House of Representatives then was the only popularly elected branch of the federal government. 

Given the results of Election Day 2024, the National Popular Vote Initiative will, I think, be consigned to the dustbin of history.