The assumption was that the Electoral College math would continue to favor the GOP and disadvantage Democrats. But the main theme we approach 2024 presidential election It seems like “expecting the unexpected”. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump remain disappointingly close in poll after poll, opening the door to a world where he wins the popular vote but still losing the Electoral College and presidency.

If this were to happen, years of assumptions about the shape of American democracy would be upended. Democrats became shout the loudest To finally remove the vestigial body, the Electoral College, from the Constitution. But even if Harris wins only because of a secret formula developed 200 years ago, there’s still no good reason to keep such an undemocratic institution around.

Harris and Trump are statistically deadlocked in many crucial states, and neither has a clear lead outside the margin of error in most polls. But eight states considered critical The last days of the race don’t matter because these are the busiest days. Rather, the reason places like Georgia and Pennsylvania have such great importance is that they are competitive enough to tip the Electoral College toward one candidate or the other.

We recently saw Democrats outperform twice in the national popular vote compared to the latest Electoral College results. When Trump won in 2016, he won by a narrow margin in the Electoral College but did not have a popular mandate; His loss in 2020 was likewise a national blowout, but it was extremely close in swing states that sent President Joe Biden over the edge. Here’s how Trump won Wisconsin: Just under 23,000 votes in 2016 And lost by nearly 21,000 votes In 2020.

There’s every indication that this year will be just as close — but what if it’s not all down to just a handful of voters in less than 20% of the states in the union? For a long time, the Electoral College distorted far beyond the original purpose One of the drafters of the Constitution. As I wrote after the 2020 election, the Electoral College’s version Alexander Hamilton dreamed“A place where ‘there would be a constant possibility of seeing the station filled with characters superior in talent and virtue’ basically never worked as intended.”

Instead, the rise of political parties gave way to the current system. Voters on Election Day are really Election of Democratic or Republican electors who promised to star their Vote for your own party’s candidate. This is a complex practice that adds an unnecessary layer between the people and the presidency. Also, D-Art. As his agent Jamie Raskin said In the 2022 interview“There are so many twisty alleyways, nooks and crannies in the Electoral College that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief.”

Trump sought to exploit these oddities in his failed bid to stay in office after his loss in 2020. But as a result, there was no real surge of energy to eliminate the Electoral College. In fact, the closest the country came to doing so was 1970, when Richard Nixon ran away with the electoral votes and won the popular vote by less than 1% of the national total. The resulting constitutional amendment was passed by the Parliament, but impeached in the SenateAn example where an anti-democratic institution can only be preserved thanks to an anti-democratic process.

While the electoral system is still firmly in place for next week’s election, it will take very specific circumstances for Harris to prevail as she loses the popular vote to Trump. Like Nate Cohn of the New York Times revealed last monthAs the gap between Harris’s lead in national polls and the so-called “tipping point” state narrows, Trump’s advantage in the Electoral College is also diminishing. This is possible because Harris is doing well in the northern battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Trump is on the sidelines in uncompetitive states like New York.

It’s ridiculous that we even have to do this kind of math to determine who might win the presidency. Current mechanisms disenfranchise both urban conservatives and rural liberals and substitute geography for political agency. A world where direct popular votes are decisive would force candidates to compete for every vote in every state. This would be another much-needed step in America’s transformation from a centuries-long conglomeration of independent states into a single national unit.

The question then will be whether Harris can run a different campaign than she does now, without an excessive focus on volatile states. And I gave it to him slide to center and I can’t say he will because of his intense focus on ripping off moderate Republicans. Trump would also be unlikely to split down the middle in this case — he wouldn’t have won in 2016 without the help of the Electoral College.

And the idea that Trump can win the popular vote while losing the Electoral College should not be a deterrent to its abolition. If this is truly what the American people want, sending him back to the White House should come straight to their minds. Let what ends America’s experiment in democracy be a genuine contest for the hearts and minds of all voters, not devotion to the smears of aristocrats fearful of the power of their citizens.