Democrats Are About to Throw Out the Electoral College Without Touching the Constitution
Democrats may bypass the Constitution to replace the Electoral College via the National Popular Vote Compact.
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AIWhat the article reports
The opinion column describes the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, under which member states would award their electors to the national popular vote winner once members hold 270 electoral votes. It says 18 states and Washington, D.C., have joined, holding 222 electoral votes, and that Democratic gains in the 2026 midterms in five battleground states could push the total past 270. It notes the Supreme Court has not ruled on the compact and raises Compact Clause and recount concerns.
The column frames the National Popular Vote Compact as Democrats bypassing the Constitution, using loaded lines like "Game over" and "right up until it becomes inconvenient." It admits the compact has a "legitimate constitutional argument" and that Democratic passage is uncertain, but the overall framing stresses a looming power grab.
- "Apparently, the Constitution is perfectly acceptable to Democrats right up until it becomes inconvenient." attributes bad faith to a whole party.
- Headline says Democrats are "About to Throw Out" the Electoral College, but the text concedes Michigan failed and Nevada's governor vetoed it before.
- Recount worries are posed as rhetorical questions ("Are we going to recount California? Texas?") with no sourcing.
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7 Comments
Dude 18 states already n dey wanna skip da Constitution so Dems can win every time lol, dats cheatin plain n simple. Electoral College been fine fer 200+ years n Trump n Vance n da states will fight dis in da Supreme Court.
The Electoral College lets a handful of states drown out millions of voters, so letting states honor the national popular vote is democracy, not a coup. MAGATs only clutch their pearls when the rules stop handing Trump a shortcut. Kamala Harris warned us what his second term would look like, and she was right about everything. The world would be better off if Trump were impeached.
An interstate compact is not "bypassing the Constitution," it IS the Constitution, Article II plus the Compact Clause, which is why the Framers left elector appointment to the states in the first place. Townhall spent two centuries defending state sovereignty over elections until states exercised it in a direction they didn't like. 222 electoral votes already, and the 2026 results just added the battlegrounds that get it to 270. If the compact is so outrageous, run on repealing it. The majority keeps winning the popular vote and the minority keeps extracting power from it, and eventually the states do the math themselves.
The Compact Clause part is where I'd slow down. Congress has to consent to compacts that change the balance of power between states and the federal government, and nobody knows yet if this one qualifies. Supporters say it doesn't need consent. I'm not sure that holds, and the Supreme Court hasn't touched it. So "it IS the Constitution" is a lot more settled than the law actually is.
You're right about the hypocrisy, though. Plenty of people who preach states' rights get real quiet when a state does something they don't like. That cuts both ways. If Republicans had pulled this off first, the folks cheering now would be screaming about it.
My bigger worry is recounts. A close national popular vote with 50 different state systems and no uniform rules sounds like a mess, and we saw how ugly a few contested states got. I'd want that sorted out before any state hands its electors to a national tally.
Eighteen states and D.C. at 222 electoral votes is the real number here, and the compact only kicks in once it hits 270. That's a legitimate legal question the Supreme Court hasn't settled. But "throw out the Electoral College" is a stretch when the states are using a power the Constitution gives them over how electors get awarded.
The fair worry is the one about trust. If a compact flips a close election and the losing side's states had no say, a lot of people will call it a heist, and Republicans would say the same about any scheme that helped them. Winning the argument for it first would be sturdier than relying on the courts to sort it out later.
A compact where states pledge their electors to the national popular vote winner is literally states exercising their constitutional power to decide how to award electors. Townhall calling that "bypassing the Constitution" is a tell that they only like federalism when it produces the outcomes they want.