ELECTORAL COLLEGE SHOULD BE ABOLISHED SO REPUBLICAN PARTY IS FORCED TO 'GROW OR DIE,' SAYS EX-ROMNEY STRATEGIST
The Electoral College should be abolished in order for the long-term survival of the Republican Party, says a former Mitt Romney strategist.
Stuart Stevens, the ex-chief strategist for Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, made the case for abolishing the Electoral College in an op-ed published by USA Today on Monday. Stevens argued that the system never worked as intended and has only made America subject to minority rule.
"Let's quit pretending there is some great benefit to the national good that allows the person with the least votes to win the White House," Stevens wrote.
In 2016, Donald Trump lost to Hillary Clinton in the popular vote by 2.8 million ballots, becoming the sixth Republican candidate to lose the popular vote since 1988. In total, five presidents in U.S. history have won office while losing the popular vote, including Trump and George W. Bush in 2000.
But Trump ultimately won the presidency by threading a needle in the Electoral College. Trump won four of the largest electoral states—Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—by razor-thin margins.
Exit polls from the 2016 election showed Trump only claimed 29 percent of the Hispanic vote and 8 percent of the black vote. Clinton, on the other hand, had 89 percent of the black vote and 66 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Though Trump did defeat Clinton when it came to the white vote. Fifty-seven percent of white voters supported Trump while only 37 percent supported Clinton. But as Stevens noted in his op-ed, white people are becoming a minority in the U.S.
"As long as the Republican Party believes it can win as an overwhelmingly white party, it will never feel the political pressure to change," Stevens wrote, adding that without an Electoral College the GOP "would be forced to grow or die."
Since the 2016 election, calls for abolishing the Electoral College have increased significantly.
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have joined a pact vowing to award their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide regardless of whether the candidate won that particular state. The pact, officially recognized by the National Popular Vote Bill, would only take effect if enough states join to guarantee the winning candidate gets 270 electoral votes.
Last month, Oregon was the latest state to sign the bill into law. Democratic Governor Kate Brown praised the bill, citing "how important it is about increasing voter turnout" and how it will help "every single voter to realize that their vote really made a difference."
States who have joined the pact are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
