The Democrats were outraged that Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 but Trump won the Electoral College. Lacking the votes for a Constitutional Amendment to eliminate the Electoral College, they came up with a sneaky but very clever idea - get individual States to pass laws giving that State's Electoral Votes to the winner of the national popular vote. I am not a lawyer, so don't know how this would play out in the Courts, but let's run with this idea.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact binds signatory States to assigning their Electoral Votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The compact comes into force when States representing 270 Electoral Votes have passed the law. Currently States representing 189 EVs have passed the law and it is under consideration in States representing another 116 EVs. So there's quite a good chance that it will come into effect, as the Democrats intended. The States that have passed it or where it has been introduced are shaded light red in the map above. (Note that the dark red States voted for Trump and there's no reason to think they won't next year as well)
So where do I get away with calling a 49 State landslide for Trump? After all, we haven't seen this since Reagan in 1984.
You see, Trump came within a couple million of winning the popular vote: 62,984,828 (Trump) vs. 65,853,514 (Clinton). That's a little over 2% of votes cast. The margin for the Democrats is very thin, and this is using 2016 figures. Now consider Trump's advantages for next year, when compared to 2016:
- He is an incumbent, which is a big advantage. Only five incumbent presidents lost re-election during the 20th Century, and each faced challenges that Trump almost certainly won't: Taft (Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican vote with his Bull Moose Party), Hoover (Great Depression), Ford (only President because Agnew resigned in disgrace and then Nixon resigned after Watergate), Carter (disastrous foreign policy led to Iranian hostage crisis), George H.W. Bush (Ross Perot split the Republican vote). None of these seem remotely plausible, so count on Trump to pick up some popular vote simply due to incumbency.
- Republicans like him more than they did in 2016. A lot of Republicans held their noses when they voted for him in 2016, and presumably some more didn't even come out to vote. Trump was an unknown (from a policy perspective) then; now he has a record to run on, and it is pretty much a solidly Republican record. Sure, his personal style is very unusual, but from a policy perspective he's not at all out of the Republican mainstream. He'll pick up some votes here towards the popular total.
- The economy is doing well. Non-Republicans (mainly independents and blue collar Democrats, but count in a bunch of African-American men) will vote their pocketbooks next year. That's more popular votes for Trump.
- A shockingly weak Democratic field will depress Democratic voter enthusiasm. Each of the Democrats who are running are either non-entities (Castro, Gabbard, Ojeda, Delaney, Yang, Buttigieg, Gillibrand, a bunch of others nobody has ever heard of) or have terrible, exploitable weaknesses: "Creepy Joe" Biden, Fauxahontas, "Lock up the parents when the kids skip school" Harris, Commie Bernie, and the "Fake Hispanic" O'Rourke. Quite frankly, it's hard to see the Democratic base get wound up on any of those, so count that as fewer popular votes for the Democrat, equivalent to more popular votes for Trump.
Remember, Trump only needs a couple million more votes to get all the Electoral Votes from the Popular Vote Compact States. Quite frankly, items 3 and 4 above will get him close, and the others will put him over the top. It's really hard to see that those 4 advantages won't add up to 3 million more votes - like I said, that's 2% of all votes cast.
And so the Democrat's cunning plan will turn around to crush them next year. It's too clever by half. Of course, this all falls apart if there aren't enough other States signing on to the plan to bring the total up to 270 EVs. We'll have to see about that.
15 comments:
Maybe.
Hypothesizing is fun.
But the first (and every subsequent) federal court to rule on the inevitable 3M lawsuits five seconds after this is tried will rule that no state my abdicate its own electoral franchise in favor of vote results from other states, which is what the farcical Popular Vote Compact does, nor may they deliberately try to abrogate the clearly stated intention of the Constitution to elect the President by Electoral, not popular vote.
Those states will be told point-blank they can either push for a Constitutional Amendment, organize a Constitutional Convention, or pound sand, and the laws will be declared null and void from coast to coast.
90:10 any state failing to go along at that point will have its entire federal election results disallowed, and lose all congressional representation until they return to obeying federal law.
And not quashing this nonsense would mean every state's results could be challenged, with standing, by any voter in any state, and would be in about 2 seconds, thus creating interminable election chaos. Tanks and gunfire about a minute and half after that.
At most, the courts might allow that any state can divide its own electoral results based on its own popular vote, but all that does is eliminate the winner-take-all system, and put half of CA, NY, and IL back in play for [R]s, and half of FL and TX in play for the [D]s. Areas that are hugely one-sided will be the losers, and the new kingmakers will be the 50-50 states, and no one will ever campaign in NYC, L.A., Chicongo, or any other one-party area ever again, because it'll be pointless. But you'll see Democrats in Austin and Miami, and Republicans in Central CA, upstate NY, and everywhere in IL except Chicongo, because those moves will pay electoral dividends.
At that point, the [D] soopergeniuses who burped this idiocy out will slither back into their holes, one step ahead of the Leftard lynch mobs coming for their heads.
Aesop breaks it down very succinctly. Good job, Aesop.
There's this thing in Fed laws, based on the Constitution, that individual states won't make treaties with other states. Since that was one of the causes of the great troubled years of 1861-1865.
This will backfire like the nuclear option on votes and not acknowledging the blue check system.
Hahahahahahahahahahhahahhahaha...
Not tired of winning yet.
Which is why the demonrats are pushing for the illegal vote in so many states.
I just pray that Trump does win reelection.
Many states have laws telling Electors how to vote. Most of these laws forbid faithless Electors, and promise retribution for doing so.
All of these laws cannot be enforced. No faithless elector has ever been punished. The electoral college cannot be ordered to do anything, and can make up any rules they please for a given election year's college. They answer to no one once elected.
Well what @Aesop states may be true, I think the issue is a couple factors not mentioned. The first is the socialists really are stuck on their one man one vote, I hear about it all the time here in Wyoming where my vote here somehow outweighs 77 plus voters in Kalifornia or something. No matter what you try to explain about mob rule, keeping minority population votes mattering etc, they are infatuated with that sort of voting.
The real first issue you have is that it's not about states suing each other as it is it will take weeks or months at best for this stuff to actually process though the courts. Remember the Gore/Bush Florida debacle? The Democrats know this and are counting on it going though multiple levels of the courts and all the time Trump being illegitimate in the mean time therefore can't make any decisions or anything with out even more lawsuits. Even if you assume everything goes as it should in theory and it all comes up rosy you again will have all the folks marching about how Trump stole the election. Hell, they still are doing that over non existent collusion.
Here is the second big issue no one is looking at: How many lower court judges are Clinton/Obama placed or placed though the Democrat party by default? You all wanna bet the 9th Clown Circus Court is suddenly going to adhere to the constitution? How many of these Democrat appointed judges are going to at best hold up decisions for as long as possible for :
1. SUDDENLLYZZZZ WE FOUND MAGIC VOTING BOX OF UNCAST BALLOTS FOR THE DEMOCRATIC SIDE!!!!!!!! [Like what has happened already multiple times over the years]
2. Republican ballots can be discarded either by disqualifying them or losing them..
3. See point above where no decisions can be made by the administration due to all the other lawsuits that are still going though the courts about the votes even if the election is declared won. (I'm not 100 percent positive if those lawsuits would still be valid if the election is called however..)
4. The Democrats get their wilder base sections riled up to make it so martial laws are enacted, and those are declared illegitimate..
Just my thoughts on it. I suspect that if it goes this way we are relying on the Supreme Court for this and who knows how that would possibly go or how long it would take to get there.
I would think that the Margin of Fraud will be overwhelmingly (even moreso than last time) for the Dems, which will make the PVC states got against your prediction.
I do hope, however, that you are correct.
Rather than going to the courts, it might just go to shooting. There's not a lot of trust left.
Washington State Supreme Court upholds fines for faithless electors:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/states-high-court-upholds-1000-fines-for-rogue-electors-who-didnt-vote-for-hillary-clinton-in-2016/
Writing for the majority, Justice Barbara Madsen wrote that the U.S. Constitution gives states the power to direct how electors to the Electoral College are appointed and that electors act under the authority of the state.
“The power of electors to vote comes from the State, and the elector has no personal right to that vote,” Madsen wrote. Nothing in the Constitution “grants to the electors absolute discretion in casting their votes and the fine does not interfere with a federal function.”
Writing, alone, in dissent, Justice Steven Gonzalez argued that the nation’s founders intended electors to be free to exercise their judgment.
“The Constitution provides the State only with the power to appoint, leaving the electors with the discretion to vote their conscience,” Gonzalez wrote. “Therefore, the State cannot impose a civil penalty on electors who do not vote for the candidates nominated by their party.”
Sumeer Singla, a lawyer representing three of the four faithless electors — Bret Chiafalo, Levi Guerra and Esther John — said he still had to talk to his clients, but that they were considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. They are watching a similar case from Colorado, pending in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“There is essentially a question of whether or not this is a federal function,” Singla said. “We believe it’s timely, and I think the Supreme Court should clarify what the purpose of the Electoral College is.”
A couple of points:
1) 300,000 Puerto Ricans stayed on the mainland after the hurricane. That swings Florida to the Democrat side.
2) Leftist judges don't care about the law or the Constitution. At all. This cannot be overstated, or repeated often enough.
Well this is what these people do. If they can't win, they either cheat or change the rules. And conservatives go whining along with it and beg them to play fair.
I have seen this at the family level. Unlike us, liberals and progs can't be shamed. They believe they have the moral high ground, and that becomes the basis for their unsportsmanlike conduct. Everything they are trying to do is just too important to be hindered by bums like you or me or even some archaic piece of paper like the bill of rights or the constitution. You see this right on down to their day to day conduct.
I think some really nasty confrontations are in the works too - and that stuff like this is a fight worth having.
To the points that B and Borepatch made above: Here's one way it could (not saying it will, and I hope it doesn't) go.
The fraud in 2020 is not only stupendous, but blatant in a "not even pretending to care" way. The presentation will be: "**** you, deplorable. What are you going to do about it?"
The Institutional Stoopid Party will roll over (or try to), because it gets them shed of #OrangeManBad.
Having been allowed to succeed this time because #OrangeManBad, the tactic will be employed successfully every election thereafter, because #Precedent.
(Also, because the Institutional Stoopid Party gets enough of the grift to stay bought.)
I devoutly hope I am wrong, and will ask for Tapatio hot sauce and a side of red beans and cornbread with my crow.
The Institutional Stoopid Party hasn't been calling the shots since early 2016.
That's most of what has them so chapped in the underpants.
They have become the New Whigs, and are in grave danger of making that shift permanent, with all the historical trimmings.
Romney had to decamp and carpetbag all the way to Mormonland, for what holds every promise of being a one-term shot, just to stave off total political irrelevancy for another brief span of time.
Ask Theresa Maynot how that works out for you politically a couple of years out.
But Glen is correct about the Feelz Brigade.
That's the point when voting becomes kinetic.
At that point, Fortune favors the most ruthless, who become so earliest.
There will be no do-overs, nor will voting by the dead be an option any longer.
And trust is history. The commodity value has reached a market value of $0.
The next shenanigans will not end up in court, they're likely to be ended at the point of bayonets, buckshot, and bullets.
And then we're Weimar.
"Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth."
- field marshal Tyson
In Ken's scenario, the next step for the Evil Party is fraud on their agenda that has been languishing - most notably, gun control. What's stopping them is the Supreme Court, and so the court packing plans they've been yacking about go front and center.
That's the point that things get hairy. Half of the country simply won't go along with their plans, and when (as Aesop puts it) the market value of trust in the Republic's institutions reach $0 then it's Annie Get Your Gun.
Like I have said, I sure hope it won't get to that point. There are signs that it may be outside of the margin of Fraud. Sure hope so.
Kurt:
Interesting. First time that has happened. I expect this decision to be stomped to death in federal court.
Again not mentioned is various state and federal court levels that have been packed with leftist judges. Saw another article about one being suspended for 6 months for his commentary both in the courtroom and outside about Trump. That's one of how many that actually got enough public notice that created an uproar.
You WILL have judges that will override whatever they want. Do you folks not see that happening already with things like the borderwall, the travel bans for just two examples?
Expect, fully expect every single state you think is going to have to push their votes to the right to have a judge ruling they don't have to. I hope that I'm wrong on all the points I mentioned now and above no matter what my opinion is on Trump. (I will admit I did not vote for him.) Those of y'all that have social media platforms look at it really carefully. The Collusion narrative has turned in to Obstruction (How you can obstruct an investigation when there was no criminal activity found I'll never know and while you can't indite a sitting president, if anyone else had criminal activity on their hands they would be swinging from a lamp already...) which is turning in to impeachment. I think some of you may be fooling yourselves. I fully expect that there will as recounts get underway in some states wheelbarrels full of nicely done fully legible Democrat votes to turn up that were found in some precinct somewhere. This does not even go in to the amount of dead votes, illegal votes or other fraud that will happen on election day itself.
Glen hit it right on this one. The left thinks they have the moral high ground and can do no wrong and any and all actions justify their end game.
Some of you all have said mark your words on predictions, here is mine:
Mark my words, the levels of voter fraud and late discoveries of sacks of nice democrat votes will be in the hundreds of thousands if not millions more than enough to counter any additional popular Trump votes.
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