The Truth About the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

Topic: Perspective

This journal aims not only to provide relevant content about the issues those in power largely avoid, but also timely and actionable information about issues impacting the current state of American political and civic life.  Yesterday, I learned that there is likely to be a renewed effort in Arizona this coming legislative session to persuade the Republican legislature to sign Arizona onto the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.  I posted about it on X last night, and it wasn’t long before political flying elbow drops were landing on social media:

I am catching wind that there will be an effort to sign Arizona to the National Popular Vote Compact in the coming legislative session, aided by Republicans.

This would give Arizona’s electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote regardless of the presidential outcome in Arizona. Just 2 of the past 9 GOP nominees have won the popular vote including in 2024.

It is purely unconstitutional.

I wrapped the post up by mentioning Arizona Speaker-Elect Steve Montenegro, Senate President Warren Petersen, and Freedom Caucus leaders Jake Hoffman (Senate) and Joseph Chaplik (House) to ensure constituents brought this concern to their attention.

Allow me to explain the unconstitutional National Popular Vote Interstate Compact:

·      It was first dreamed up when George W. Bush beat Al Gore in the 2000 Election, despite narrowly losing the “popular vote” (note: national popular vote is not described in the Constitution).

·      The premise of the compact is that enacting states will award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, but this only takes effect once enough jurisdictions to equal 270 electoral votes sign on to the compact.

·      Currently, 209 electoral votes are accounted for, with 17 states and Washington, D.C., signed on to the NPVIC:

Signed on to NPVIC: California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii, Washington, D.C.

Here is how this block of states voted in the 2024 Election:

Kamala Harris 208 Electoral Votes

Donald Trump 1 Electoral Vote (Maine’s 2^nd Congressional District)

69 more electoral votes, enough to surpass 270 if all states with pending legislation passed the NPVIC, are under consideration across the map in Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Which brings us to Arizona…

Legislators there are already being furnished a copy of Every Vote Equal, a colossal, 894-page treatise designed specifically to undermine the purpose of the Electoral College, which is to ensure no one state, or pact of states, dominates the process of electing the American president. With Arizona’s past history of flirting with this compact, plus the inroads lobbyists are looking to make two months out from the start of the legislative session, it looks like this piss poor idea is going to have to be shown the door once again.

If you think Arizona is safe from this radical idea, think again.  In 2016, a bill to sign on to the NPVIC passed the Republican-held House, with significant support from GOP members and current Governor Katie Hobbs, then a State Senator who should never have been mistaken for a constitutional scholar or someone who would lay it all on the line to uphold the founding ideals of the American Republic.

The current Electoral College system isn’t without its shortcomings, such as campaigns being largely focused on less than a fifth of the map, but a popular vote system would unleash democracy in a Republic, putting Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago in the driver’s seat and relegating most of the map to second-class status.

Benjamin Franklin is often attributed with a very memorable quote on democracy:

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

Defenders of the NPVIC say “it doesn’t abolish the Electoral College!”  As a matter of technical accuracy, no, it does not abolish the Electoral College.  Instead, it disenfranchises the states that wish to abide by the original intent of the Electoral College by taking advantage of the Constitution’s outlining of the Electoral College concept.  In the earliest days of presidential contests, state legislatures appointed electoral slates.  This practice began to disappear in the 1830s, as presidential contests gave way to a statewide popular vote as the primary means of apportioning electors.

In seeking to enshrine “one man, one vote,” NPVIC proponents would essentially place all national power into California, which Joe Biden won by 5,104,121 ballots in 2020.  California’s presidential margin is on pace to be much tighter this year with the GOP nominee (President Trump, obviously) poised to carry the national popular vote for the first time since 2004, but without California’s enormous margin for Harris, this would be the popular vote tally (as of the morning of November 20, 2024, week three of counting):

Trump 70,989,402 (+5,672,859)

Harris 65,316,543

Instead, Trump’s popular vote lead is just 2,484,193.  California’s margin for Harris in raw votes is going to end up more than twice the size of Trump’s margins in either Texas or Florida, which are the two largest GOP states by population, and as such, the biggest opportunities for margin of victory expansion.  In fact, a win of just 10% in margin for any Democrat in California, which we haven’t seen in 20 years, would yield a greater margin of raw vote victory than either Texas or Florida afforded Trump this year in massive blowouts, complete with a coalition shift of the Hispanic working class.

For those of you thinking the GOP is now the party of the popular vote, even once Trump leaves the political scene, remember these results for the popular vote since 1992:

1992 Bush 41 – lost popular vote

1996 Dole – lost popular vote

2000 Bush 43 – lost popular vote, won Electoral College

2004 Bush 43 – won popular vote

2008 McCain – lost popular vote

2012 Romney – lost popular vote

2016 Trump – lost popular vote, won Electoral College

2020 Trump – “lost” popular vote

2024 Trump – won popular vote

Two popular vote wins in the last nine elections, spanning more than three decades of sample size, yet four Republican presidential victories.  Adopters of the NPVIC would have thrown away two GOP presidential victories as allowed by founding intent.  It may be possible if the GOP is now the party of the working class (meaning reduced Democrat margins in New York, Illinois, California, and New Jersey, and bigger margins in Texas and Florida) that more popular vote wins are in store for the future, but do you really think Democrats would honor the NPVIC if the Democrat nominee had won what would have been a popular vote loss, but Electoral College victory, under the old system?

No.  They most certainly would not.

The NPVIC is a disaster and any Republican who pledges their states electors not only violates the intent of the Constitution by disenfranchising the electors of other states (the crux of the unheard Texas v. Pennsylvania case regarding the conduct of the 2020 election, which the Supreme Court refused to take up), but has no business holding elected office because to push this sort of insane nonsense, so far only signed on to by jurisdictions voting 208 to 1 in the Electoral College for Harris over Trump, is to tacitly admit to being owned by lobbyists who profit personally by fronting these measures, and politically by watching the concept of a Republic be marched off the gangplank.

America is not a democracy.  It is a Constitutional Republic.  Representatives and Senators pushing this sort of reform are telling you, the constituent, they are fine with California finding votes until Thanksgiving if that is what it takes to knock off the votes of Arizonans, or residents of any state, for that matter.  For those of you keeping score at home, California will certify roughly five times as many ballots as Arizona will this year.

Another Franklin quote, “A Republic, if you can keep it,” was uttered for these exact situations that arise under the guise of fairness, but yield anything but that.

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Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.