Extraordinary Popular Vote Delusions and the Madness of NPVIC
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is dangerous for America and perhaps even more so for its Democratic fan base.
While pratfalling toward her redistricting disaster, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger affixed her signature to an idea that, if in effect in 2024, would likely have given Donald Trump the greatest Electoral College victory since George Washington—one vote short of Washington’s unanimous victories. The bill that Spanberger signed adds Virginia to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC)—one of the most harebrained public policy ideas of a notoriously harebrained era.
The legal effect would have been nil—Trump would not have been any more president than he is now. But Democrats would have been treated to four years of “Most-Popular-Since-Washington” crowing by Trump and his coterie. Election 2024 would have become a gigantic cake, baked by Democrats, and festooned with 537 red candles and 1 pathetic blue candle. For Trump and his allies, the cherry atop the cake would have been the legions of Democratic office-holders facing turbo-charged Republican get-out-the-vote efforts in deep-blue states. As the saying goes, “Be careful what you ask for.”
WHAT, PRAY TELL, IS THIS NPVIC?
The NPVIC is a shaky scheme for circumventing the Electoral College and determining presidential elections by an ill-defined, highly-manipulable, easily-contested, fatally imprecise metric called “the national popular vote” (NPV). Short-sighted people, unaware of the concept of secondary effects, believe the NPVIC would have elected Al Gore over George Bush and Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump and that it will reliably favor Democrats over Republicans in future elections. A modest number of ill-informed Republicans also naively support the NPVIC on goo-goo (good government) grounds.
The NPVIC would, in theory, force a majority of the Electoral College to support the presidential candidate who won the NPV. It would do so by means of a jerry-built line-up of states who promise on a state-by-state basis to award their states’ electors to the NPV-winner. This plywood-and-tar-paper construct is necessary for NPV fans because there is zero chance that the Electoral College can be abolished via constitutional amendment.
As discussed below, the NPVIC has the potential to turn every presidential election into a coast-to-coast replay of the Florida 2000 catastrophe—or worse. And Democrats who think the NPVIC would have prevented the elections of George W. Bush (2000) and Donald Trump (2016) need to study up on unintended consequences.
ALTERNATIVE HISTORY: NPVIC 2024 AND THE RED SEA
To begin our exploration, let’s glance at how the Electoral College results would have changed in 2024 had the NPVIC been in effect, with Virginia and New Hampshire as signatories and Nebraska remaining outside of the compact. (New Hampshire is a top target for NPVIC backers and Nebraska is not.)
In 2024, Donald Trump received 312 electoral votes (from 33 states and northern Maine) versus Kamala Harris’s respectable 226 votes (from 17 states; Washington, DC; and Omaha, Nebraska). With a Virginia- and New Hampshire-ratified NPVIC in effect, Trump would have received 537 votes, and Harris would have received only 1 vote—from Omaha. Trump would have enjoyed the greatest Electoral College victory since George Washington. He would have been the first president since James Monroe in 1820 to lose but a single electoral vote. The graphic above shows the actual map and the map the Democrats’ dream would have produced.
WHY DEMOCRATS LONG FOR THE NPVIC
There are Democrats (and a few Republicans) who wish to move from election by Electoral College to election by National Popular Vote because the latter sounds more like “democracy” and, in many cases, because they do not comprehend the arguments for the Electoral College. (See Chesterton’s Fence to understand their mindset.) I suspect, however, that for most, the motivation is “Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral Vote in 2000, and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote in 2016. Let’s make sure the Republicans never win that way again.” Adherents of that logic might imagine that, had the NPVIC been in effect since 2000, Gore and Clinton would have defeated Bush and Trump. And more importantly, they presume the NPVIC will keep NPV-deficient Republicans out of the White House.
A GALLERY OF NPVIC NIGHTMARES FOR DEMOCRATS
(NOTE: electoral votes are awarded on a winner-take-all basis in 48 states and DC—with Nebraska and Maine allocating 2 votes apiece to statewide winners and the others to the popular vote winner in each state.)
The notion that NPVIC naturally favors Democrats betrays a profound ignorance of presidential election history. Consider some additional plausible alternative histories.
1960: NPVIC HANDS NIXON THE PRESIDENCY OVER KENNEDY! John Kennedy won the Electoral College over Richard Nixon (though some suspect that Texas and Illinois were stolen). But (it is widely asserted), Kennedy won the popular vote over Nixon. However, declaring Kennedy the popular-vote winner was an arbitrary, after-the-fact decision by unofficial sources that caused little disturbance because it had no practical effect. Without some or all of Alabama’s popular votes, Kennedy would have lost the NPV—but it is not at all clear that Kennedy received any votes in Alabama that year. His name was not on the ballot, and the 11 Democratic electors elected cast 5 votes for Kennedy and 6 votes for Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd. Initially, Congressional Quarterly (CQ) arbitrarily credited Kennedy with 5/11 of Alabama’s Democratic votes—a methodology that showed Nixon as the slight NPV winner. Later CQ amended its methodology to arbitrarily award Kennedy all of Alabama’s Democratic votes. Had the NPVIC been in effect, Republicans would certainly have argued—perhaps successfully—that Nixon won the NPV.
2000: NPVIC HANDS BUSH PRESIDENCY OVER GORE! In reality, Gore won the popular vote and Bush the electoral vote, but up through Election Day, many thought the opposite might happen. Had that occurred, an NPVIC would have handed the election to Bush over NPV-winner Gore.
2000: NPVIC DEMOLISHES DOWN-BALLOT DEMS! In reality, Republicans had little incentive to pour money and organization into get-out-the-vote efforts in blue states like California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts, and individual Republicans in those states had limited incentive to vote for anything. With NPVIC, Republican money and organization would have flowed heavily into those states, likely sweeping some down-ballot Republicans into office. (Of course, the NPVIC would have incentivized Democratic efforts in Texas, Alabama, etc.)
2004: NPVIC HANDS BUSH RE-ELECTION OVER KERRY! In reality, Bush won the popular vote by a wide margin and the electoral vote by a small margin. A small change in Ohio’s votes would have given that state and the election to John Kerry, with George Bush taking the NPV—and early exit polls suggested that that would be the outcome. In such circumstances, an NPVIC would have denied Kerry the election.
2012: NPVIC ELECTS ROMNEY OVER OBAMA! In reality, Obama won both the popular and electoral votes. But pre-election, some analysts expected Mitt Romney to win the popular vote, with Barack Obama winning the Electoral College. In such a case, an NPVIC would have ousted Obama from the White House, replacing him with Romney.
2016: NPVIC GIVES TRUMP THE ELECTION OVER CLINTON! Echoing the 2000 result, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote while Donald Trump took the electoral vote, but some feared the opposite would occur—and devised plans to deal with recalcitrant Trump supporters belittling her Electoral College victory. Had Clinton’s fear panned out, the NPVIC would have elected Trump over Clinton.
2016: TRUMP WINS POPULAR VOTE AND ELECTORAL VOTE! In reality, Trump’s campaign aimed only to win the Electoral College—and did so by demolishing the so-called “Blue Wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Clinton’s fatal error may well have been a focus on running up the popular vote in places like California (to prevent Trump from boasting that he won the popular vote) while ignoring the Upper Midwest Blue Wall states, which they took for granted. With an NPVIC, Trump would have had every motive to run up his popular vote turnout in for-sure blue states, perhaps delivering Clinton the popular vote loss she feared in reality.
2024: TRUMP IS TOP ELECTORAL COLLEGE WINNER SINCE GEORGE WASHINGTON! As noted above, with the actual votes cast, an NPVIC would have given Donald Trump a 537-1 victory over Kamala Harris in the Electoral College. No legal ramifications, but the psychological effects on Democrats would have been excruciating.
Summing up, Democrats’ faith in the NPVIC rests on two statistical idiocies:
Ceteris Paribus Fallacy: the assumption that because a theoretical model holds all other variables constant, the real world will behave similarly. In the cases of 2000 and 2016, those falling for this fallacy assume that parties and voters would have behaved exactly the same with the NPVIC as they did without the NPVIC.
Hasty Generalization: Acceptance of a broad conclusion based on a small or unrepresentative sample. Gore’s loss in 2000 and Clinton’s loss in 2016 comprise a sample size of 2. (A few political junkies might also cite the 1824, 1876, and 1888 elections—but those weird cases don’t add much firepower to the argument.)
Falling for either of these errors would earn a beginning economics or statistics student an “F.”
FLORIDA 2000: CAUSES AND MITIGATION
The 2000 election ended with the most ferocious Electoral College dispute since 1876. The 2000 disaster required three simultaneous events in Florida, and the only thing that contained the damage was the Electoral College. The NPVIC could easily turn any presidential election a nationwide conflagration.
In 2000, the whole disputed election arose from Florida’s Trifecta-from-Hell:
The Electoral College nationwide was so close that whoever won Florida would also win the Electoral College and, hence, the presidency.
The popular vote in Florida was so close as to be in dispute.
Election procedures in Florida were so sloppy as to put the state’s winner in dispute.
For all the trauma and bitterness that emerged from Florida in 2000, the catastrophe was limited to one state. Flipping New Hampshire would also have flipped the Electoral College and put Gore in the White House. Like Florida, the popular vote in New Hampshire was exceedingly close. But, unlike Florida, Bush’s popular vote victory in New Hampshire was never in doubt. New Hampshire had tightened up its procedures after a year-long dispute over a Senate race in the 1970s. Nor was any other state’s popular vote-winner in doubt. Lawyers and protestors were limited to Florida alone. The Electoral College turns every state line into a firebreak—preventing disputes from crossing borders.
After 2000, Democratic bitter-enders argued that Bush’s victory was illegitimate. Hillary Clinton said in 2002 that Bush was “selected not elected”—14 years before her own defeat under similar circumstances. For years, journalists searched fruitlessly for some recount methodology that would have flipped Florida and thus the national outcome. But none of the complaints stretched past the Florida border.
Recently, Kamala Harris condemned the Electoral College. Curiously, in 2012, Donald Trump said, “The [E]lectoral [C]ollege is a disaster for a democracy,” and even after the Electoral College handed him victory over Clinton in 2016, Trump said, “I'm not going to change my mind just because I won.” (As on many issues, I disagree with Trump on this one.)
FLORIDA 2000, EVERY STATE, ALL THE TIME
With an NPVIC in force, any close election (like 1948, 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, 2004, 2016, 2020, or 2024) would send both parties scurrying for extra votes in every nook and cranny across the nation. Every instance of real or imagined election fraud or incompetence in any town in America would become fodder for litigation and protests. In a close election, the locust-swarm of attorneys, journalists, and protestors that descended upon Florida in 2000 would have become a 50-state inferno. Instead of the U.S. Supreme Court considering the legality of one state’s vote count, the Court would be examining the count in every single state. Thus, an NPVIC would initiate a nuclear arms race in which states strive to make their electorates redder or bluer long before the first ballots are even cast. With the Electoral College, more Democratic voters in Massachusetts or more Republican voters in Kentucky have no effect on the national outcome. Tilting the voter rolls only matters in the relatively few battleground states—whose governments are generally full of both Democrats and Republicans. But abolishing the Electoral College hands the officials of every single state a powerful incentive to bolster their own party’s registrations and turnout and to limit the other party’s numbers—by legitimate or nefarious means. Lower the voting age to 16. Suppress minority registrations. Pad rolls with ineligible or fictitious voters. Strike eligible voters from rolls. Find ballot boxes. Lose ballot boxes. Lie, cheat, and steal if necessary. Loosen the controls over mail ballots.
In addition, there are questions as to the legality and enforceability of the NPVIC. NPVIC states also vary in their treatment of faithless electors—those members of the Electoral College who say, “The hell with whom the voters wanted—I’ll cast my electoral vote for the candidate I want.” In 2016, under the name “Hamilton Electors,” Democrats briefly tried to gin up faithless electors to abandon Trump and vote for Clinton.
In 2024, in considerably greater detail, I described these risks and the Electoral College’s role in limiting disputes over presidential elections. That article (“Electoral College as National Firebreaks”) contains a passage I’m fond of, so here it is again:
“In 2012, George Washington University Law School professor Jeffrey Rosen said, ‘It’s striking that both sides tend to adjust their position on the Electoral College based on whose ox is being gored.’ …
To that, I added:
With the NPVIC, it might be more appropriate to say, ‘based on whose Gore is being axed.’”
BEST EXPLANATION FOR THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE INTERSTATE COMPACT
Steve McQueen describes a fellow in El Paso whose thought processes on clothing and cactus resemble Democrats’ thought processes on the NPVIC.
Terrific piece, Bob! The Electoral College is so (deliberately?) misrepresented in public school curricula, that it's now seen as a "defect" in the Constitution by most people under 60. But it's a vital feature that preserves each state's inherent sovereignty. When I was a Boy Scout merit badge counselor, I would explain it thus: "What is the title of the office decided by the Electoral College? President of WHAT?" Strange as most people may think, the office is president of the STATES, president of the united STATES. And so, it's the STATES who elect (their) president. Each STATE gets a proportionate vote, which is indeed decided by the popular vote, but the vote of that STATE's people. When a state's legislators adopt the NPVIC, it's like a suicide pact with their own citizens, surrendering their people's interests, and their own fiduciary duty to those interests. As you point out so graphically with your map, with Kamala's dismayed look and Trump's look of glee, sooner or later an NPVIC state will get, as the sayings go, "bit in the ass," or "hoist on its own petard."
is that vote padding needs to happen only in a handful of jurisdictions. Like CA, MN, or NY. Viola! The popular vote goes to the Democrat candidate.