Donald Trump took to Truth Social to falsely accuse Democrats of wanting to remove the popular vote and demonstrate that he doesn’t understand how U.S. elections work.
Democrats don’t want to abolish the popular vote. However, many have begun showing interest in using it instead of the Electoral College to conduct elections. Each state is allocated several electoral votes in the election depending on the number of Senators and Representatives it has in Congress. Then, the presidential candidate chosen by the state’s voters is awarded the state’s electoral votes. The election is ultimately determined by the Electoral College, meaning a president could lose the popular vote, as Trump did in 2016, and still be named president so long as they earn at least 270 electoral votes. Today, many Americans favor doing away with the Electoral College and having the president determined by the popular vote.
Democrats are more likely to support having the popular vote determine the presidency. A poll found 8 in 10 Democrats favor moving to the popular vote, while Republicans are more split on the matter. Democrats’ favor of the popular vote and the way the voting system works made Trump’s latest false claim particularly perplexing.
Donald Trump makes puzzling claim about Democrats
Recently, Trump was on one of his late-night Truth Social rants. At 12:45 AM on December 9, he wrote, “The Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the Popular Vote in future Elections. They want all future Presidential Elections to be based exclusively on the Electoral College!” First of all, as mentioned above, Democrats don’t want to get rid of the popular vote; they actually want to elevate its significance in elections. Second, Trump’s post shows an embarrassing lack of understanding of how elections work. The Electoral College already does decide the presidential election. So, it’s unclear what he’s going on about.
What’s hilarious is that some Republicans immediately began resharing and liking Trump’s post, vouching to abolish the Electoral College to stick it to Democrats. Given that this is what the majority of Democrats actually want, a lot of them played along with posts, declaring sarcastically that they love the Electoral College to motivate conservatives to get rid of it. The whole ordeal was quite embarrassing and proves, yet again, that conservatives don’t think for themselves. Despite having mixed feelings about abolishing the Electoral College, they’re suddenly all for it when they think it’s the opposite of what Democrats want. Once they find out Democrats do want that, it will be another complete 180°.
Trump and Republicans have benefited from the Electoral College system, considering the 2024 election was the first time in 20 years that a Republican candidate won the popular vote. Not only that, but he even tried to abuse the system in 2020 to overturn the results through a “fake elector scheme.” Needless to say, his bizarre claims about Democrats and the Electoral College make no sense, and it’s concerning for an elected official to have such little understanding of America’s voting system.
Published: Dec 10, 2024 11:32 am