Bill Press: This election is already rigged against Kamala Harris!

Sure, it’s a cold day in Hell when I’d ever agree with Donald Trump on anything. But I must admit, he’s right about this. He’s right when he says the election is rigged. Except he’s got it backward.

Yes, the 2024 election is rigged. But it’s not rigged against Donald Trump. It’s actually rigged in his favor – because of something we should have gotten rid of a long time ago, but still haven’t. It’s rigged against Kamala Harris – because of the Electoral College.

We may be heading to another electoral disaster. A repeat of the presidential elections of 2000 and 2016, when the candidate who won the popular vote – by far! – did not win the White House. Already twice in this century, the winning candidate actually lost because of the Electoral College. Nothing could be more anti-democratic, with a small “d.”

As Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s highly regarded Center for Politics told me on my podcast (BillPressPod.com) this week, Kamala Harris is way ahead in the popular vote. She’ll crush Donald Trump in the number of total votes cast. But she could still end up losing to Trump in the only count that matters: the Electoral College.

In today’s political universe, winning the Electoral College comes down to so-called “battleground” states. The list of such states can change. Ohio was once considered a battleground state; now it’s reliably red. So was Virginia, but now it’s more dependably purple, if not blue. But all analysts agree that this year’s “battleground states” are seven: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. That’s where the election will be won or lost. That’s where the candidates will be spending most of their time. It’s almost a waste of their time to be campaigning anywhere else.

And the reason nobody’s willing to call this race a slam dunk, despite Harris’ big lead in the popular vote, is because, at this point, the polls in those seven states show Harris and Trump neck and neck. In the latest poll released this week by the New York Times, for example, Trump leads by just one point in Arizona and Georgia; Harris leads by one point in North Carolina; and she leads by two points in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Not enough for either side to feel good about.

Which means we’re looking at a replay of 2020 where, despite the fact that 159 million Americans voted for president, the election was decided by the slimmest of margins in the battleground states. Case in point: Joe Biden edged out Donald Trump in Arizona and picked up that state’s 11 electoral votes by only a 10,457 vote advantage.

The problem is, that affront to democracy – where a handful of voters in a handful of states decide the election for 330 million Americans – will continue, and only get worse, until we get rid of the Electoral College. At which point most people simply give up and say it’s impossible because it would take a Constitutional Amendment.

Wrong! There’s a much easier way to get rid of the Electoral College. Well, not to get rid of, but to get around it. It’s called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact – an agreement among states to award all its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. Introduced in 2006, it has already been adopted by 17 states and the District of Columbia.

As of September 2024, the National Popular Vote is the law in six small states: Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia; nine medium-size states: Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington; and three big states: California, Illinois, and New York.

Added up, that’s 209 electoral votes, just 61 votes shy – or 77 percent– of the magic 270 total necessary to win the presidency. So far there are no deep red states on board, but any combination of Georgia (16), North Carolina (16), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Nevada (6), Iowa (6), New Hampshire (4), and Alaska (3) would end the dominance of the Electoral College.

There are many steps necessary to save our democracy, but after electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, one of the most important is to persuade another group of state legislatures to adopt the National Popular Vote – so we can dump the Electoral College once and for all and unite behind the principle that whichever candidate gets the most votes wins the election. How quaint.

(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: “From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire.” His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod.)