On Tuesday, during a gala at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s personal house in Sacramento, Calif. , Kamala Harris ‘ running mate called for abolishing the Electoral College.
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“ I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go, ” Walz said, according to share writers who were there. “We need a federal common vote…. But that ’s certainly the world we live in. ”
Politico has more.
Walz said he had been talking about the idea with Newsom sooner. But he appeared to put it aside as he went on to say that the plan needs to focus on winning jump regions from Pennsylvania to northern Wisconsin and Nevada.
Walz, according to share information, made similar remarks at an earlier charity in Seattle. His opinions are a terrible warning for Democrats of 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million vote but fell short of the 270 seats she needed in the Electoral College and lost to Donald Trump.
As government, Walz signed legislation in May 2023 that essentially sought to change the Electoral College with a plan to raise a nationwide popular vote. While the number of claims who’ve backed like ideas is growing, the big change would involve congressional authorization, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Is this really someone Walz— or anyone tied to the Harris-Walz campaign — may be saying but frankly this close to the election? Whether the concept is famous or not is beside the point. A plan convinced in triumph had n’t risk making a speech like this at such a crucial time. It’s like they know Kamala is going to drop the Electoral College and are laying the groundwork for a campaign to abolish the Electoral College after the vote.
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And Democrats seem to believe Walz did in fact suggest the quiet part out loud. According to Politico, “his dramatic information Tuesday did frighten some campaign authorities so close to the election,” and the plan had to do a little recovery.
“Governor Walz believes that every ballot counts in the Electoral College and he is honored to remain traveling the country and fight says working to gain support for the Harris-Walz solution. He was commenting to a crowd of strong supporters about how the campaign is built to win 270 electoral votes, ” a Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson claimed. “And, he was thanking them for their support that is helping fund those efforts. ”
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The campaign insists that abolishing the Electoral College is not a campaign position.
Not officially, anyway.
Kamala Harris, as a presidential hopeful in 2019, said during an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live ” that she was “open to the discussion, ” of getting rid of the Electoral College.
“There’s no question that the popular vote has been diminished in terms of making the final decision about who’s the president of the United States and we need to deal with that, so I’m open to the discussion, ” Harris said at the time.
At a fundraiser last month in the New York home of investor and philanthropist Alex Soros and former Clinton staffer Huma Abedin, Walz said:“ I am hopeful on this country, but I’m also a pragmatist and a realist. ”
“That’s the electoral college system, the way it ’s set up, and the states that we’re vying for are incredibly close, ” Walz added at the fundraiser. “The good news on this is the vice president and I and everyone that ’s out there in these states are feeling the energy. ”
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Harris has a slight lead, within the margin of error, in national polling. But in the battleground states, it’s much closer, and Donald Trump is leading in enough of those states to win the election. The Harris-Walz campaign clearly knows this.