Unless blocked by the courts, the National Popular Vote would take effect when states with electoral votes totaling at least 270 — the number needed for victory — agree to participate. That’s just over half of all 538 votes. “Then, the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC will get all the electoral votes from all of the enacting states,” according to the campaign, ensuring majority will rules.
So far, 17 states and the District, with a combined 209 electoral votes, have approved the National Popular Vote. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, signed legislation accepting the National Popular Vote for his state last year. The presidential campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and Trump did not respond to questions about the electoral college.
“I’m increasingly confident that we are watching the last election under the current system,” said Patrick Rosenstiel, a National Popular Vote senior consultant. “We can have a national popular vote election in 2028.” Maryland was the first state to join in 2007. The last was Maine in April.
Rosenstiel is optimistic about the 2028 timeline, because, he said, “the proposal has passed at least one legislative chamber in seven additional states with 74 electoral votes, more than the 61 electoral votes needed for the proposal to take effect.”
His optimism is bolstered by strong public support for a more democratic system that ensures the candidate with the most popular votes wins. Sixty-five percent of adults in a 2023 Pew Research Center survey favored that. Among the coming generation, 18 to 29 years old, that jumps to 70 percent. But there is a wide ideological and partisan split. Just 36 percent of conservatives and 47 percent of people identifying as Republican or GOP leaning want to change the current system. That compares with 88 percent of liberals and 82 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning people favoring changes….