Bernie Sanders Pushes To Scrap The Electoral College For Reportedly Skewing The 2020 Playing Field
Newsweek reports that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for the abolition of the electoral college Friday. The Vermont senator’s comment followed a new NBC News analysis by Dave Wasserman that revealed President Donald Trump could still be re-elected in 2020 even if he loses the popular vote by as much as five million ballots.
Wasserman claims that California and Texas — the nation’s two most populous states — are the root of the problem. Although these states are growing at a faster rate than the rest of the United States thanks to increases in Asian and Latino populations, which swing Democrat, neither will play a pivotal role in the 2020 election. Wasserman claims that this reality could make “millions of additional Democratic votes useless.”
Previously, Sanders criticized the Constitution’s current system for its allocation of electors, which leads to heavier weight on rural states and less on large urban centers. He believes that “the concept of the electoral college” should be re-examined.
According to Nate Cohn of The New York Times, the key electorate in the Rust Belt swing states are likely where Trump’s divisive views on immigration and race will resonate.
“A strategy rooted in racial polarization could at once energize parts of the president’s base and rebuild support among wavering white working-class voters,” he wrote.
“Many of these voters backing Mr. Trump in the first place in part because of his views on hot-button issues, including on immigration and race.”
Senator Bernie Sanders calls for scrapping electoral college after new analysis shows Trump has baked-in advantagehttps://t.co/qd6TlUnYQL
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) July 21, 2019
Of course, not everyone believes Trump will take 2020. Per The Inquisitr, a Politico analysis by top political commentator and editor Josh Marshall suggests that — according to an “alternative” 2020 election scenario — “Trump loses and it’s not even close.”
Although Marshall admits Trump has big advantages thanks to the electoral college, the alternative scenario he describes is “pretty plausible” thanks in part to the fact that Trump is the least popular president since presidency popularity polling began in 1945. He also claims that the opposition to Trump is intense, with polls showing that most voters will “definitely” not vote for him in 2020, and points to the approval rating in key “battleground” states that the president won in 2016.
Regardless, Marshall is describing a specific scenario, and the electoral college could still help Trump win. In addition to Sanders’ opposition to the electoral college, Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren supports a constitutional amendment to repeal it, and Jay Inslee — also a Democratic candidate — supports an interstate compact, which would make the electoral college obsolete.
