Leftwing pundits have long predicted the demise of the Republican Party owing to demographic changes. They are quite sure they know what the weather will be in 50 years, so why not claim the same about politics? Unfortunately, panicky types on the right sometimes take the bait, predicting doom and gloom unless their fellow conservatives adopt some less-than-conservative policy position.
This is the sales pitch made to conservatives for the National Popular Vote interstate compact (NPV), which would have states give away their electoral votes based on the national popular vote result. The NPV campaign is run and funded by the left, but is desperate to find anyone on the right willing to give them a bipartisan veneer. Their argument is that Texas is sure to go blue and then, unless we shift to a direct election, Republicans will never win another presidential election. This argument is foolish, insulting, and incorrect.
First, demographics is not destiny. People are deeper than their skins and more complex than their pedigrees. Last year’s election made this clear. Donald Trump in 2020 won higher percentages among racial minority and women voters than in 2016. That was after four years of being called a racist and a misogynist by pretty much the entire mainstream media.
The 2016 election offers all kinds of cautionary tales to political prognosticators. Chief among them was Trump’s demolition of the Democrats’ “Blue Wall.” That was yet another theory as to why Republicans were doomed—a group of 18 states worth 242 electoral votes that Democrats had won consistently from 1992 through 2012. Trump won three of these in 2016, plus an elector from a fourth (Maine allocates some electors by congressional district).
Florida offers another example where Democrats once claimed demographics would bend the state their way only to see it shift toward Republicans. Today it’s Texas. But politics is messy, never moving in a straight line. Who each party nominates, what issues rise to the forefront, and who owns the next big scandal—all these factors can shift the political winds in a moment.
It is foolish for partisans to change the rules simply for short-term gains, but it is particularly insulting to suggest that conservatives reject a part of the Constitution for such a reason. The American Founders designed a state-based election process for several reasons. Most important then and now, the Electoral College limits the power of the biggest states so that people in small states still have a chance to be heard.
The Electoral College works as a two-step democratic process. It maintains a balance of power among the states, keeps states in charge of elections, and containing disputes within individual states. Sometimes these checks and balances work out to benefit Republicans, but that is not why they exist. And a lobbyist’s or pundit’s fear that it could work out the other way in a particular future election is hardly a good reason to change the system.
Another argument sometimes made to woo conservatives for NPV is that masses of Republican voters sit on the sidelines in big blue states. This is unlikely for a simple reason: Republican voters tend to be more reliable than Democratic voters, which is why Republicans often do better in midterm and down-ballot elections. This is why Democratic strategists usually believe higher turnout will help their candidates, as was the case in Barack Obama’s two presidential elections.
The concept behind NPV was developed by three liberal law professors after Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in 2000. They wanted to abolish the Electoral College, but came up with an interstate compact as an easier way than changing the Constitution. Basically, if enough states agree to give away their electoral votes (and courts don’t strike it down), their plan would have the effect of nullifying the state-by-state process. Enter John Koza, who made a fortune from his invention of the scratch-ticket lottery and was another big Gore supporter.
Koza launched the NPV campaign in 2006 with help from Jonathan Soros, the son of George Soros. According to an analysis by the Capital Research Center, every institutional donor to NPV is on the left (including the notorious Tides Foundation). Koza himself is a major donor to far-left candidates like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Are Koza, Soros, and the Tides Foundation really bankrolling a campaign to help Republicans win presidential elections? Unlikely. Are conservatives wrong to reflexively defend the Constitution against “reformers” who want to diminish checks and balances? Certainly not. The Electoral College is a fundamental structure in our republic built of sovereign states. What American—and conservatives—need today is not to reject that design, but to hold fast to it.