Although Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is slightly better than his running mate at speaking in complete and intelligible sentences, he habitually makes statements that leave Kamala Harris' campaign team with a cleanup-on-aisle-5 situation. This happens often when the would-be vice president makes claims about his personal or professional history that are either misleading or inaccurate. In this respect, Walz almost gives Joe Biden a run for his money. Recently, speaking at a fundraiser in California, Walz proclaimed that the Electoral College “needs to go,” prompting a Harris campaign spokesperson to clarify that this was not an official policy position.
“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” Walz told his audience on Oct. 8. “We need, we need national popular vote, but that’s not the world we live in." In a perfectly Harris-esque, word-salad kind of way, a campaign spokesperson attempted – but utterly failed – to clean up the remark on CNN: “Governor Walz believes that every vote matters in the Electoral College and he is honored to be traveling the country and battleground states working to earn support for the Harris-Walz ticket. He was commenting to a crowd of strong supporters about how the campaign is built to win 270 electoral votes. And, he was thanking them for their support that is helping fund those efforts.”
Eliminating the Electoral College and choosing presidents by “popular vote” is certainly not a new idea. If they were asked about it, most elected Democrats would likely favor the popular vote. Former president and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has also, on a couple of occasions, expressed his preference for choosing presidents by national popular vote rather than using the Electoral College system. A Pew Research Center study, published in September 2024, found that, by a wide margin (63%-35%), Americans prefer replacing the Electoral College with a popular vote system.
So, it appears that, unlike his views on some subjects, Walz is not out on the political extremes with this one. It should be noted, though – and this is the case with almost any public opinion survey – that the findings from Pew may have been quite different if the question had been framed another way. Pew asked, “Thinking about the way the president is elected in this country, would you prefer to change the current system so the candidate who receives the most votes wins,” or “Keep the current system so the candidate who wins the Electoral College vote wins.”
It is entirely reasonable to suggest that anyone who does not have a thorough understanding of how the Electoral College works or why it was created would choose the first option. Doesn't an “Electoral College” just complicate things? Why not give the job to the man or woman for whom the majority of Americans voted? It seems reasonable, right?
Regarding the Pew survey, it is also worth noting that Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents heavily favored eliminating the Electoral College – 80% of them, in fact. Republicans and Republican-leaners were divided, with a majority (53%-46%) preferring to stick with the Electoral College.
There's a good reason why the Founding Fathers chose a republican form of government over pure democracy, however. In theory, a national popular vote would mean that 51% of the population gets to dictate to the other 49% how they live. This does not seem like a fair system at all. Democrats often complain that Trump – and George W. Bush before him – became president without winning the majority of votes. But therein lies the beauty of the Electoral College. The current system prevents a “tyranny of the majority.” Additionally, the Electoral College guarantees that voters in every state – no matter how small or sparsely populated – have at least some say in who is elected president. In other words, the Electoral College is one of the Bulwarks of the Republic.
Harris may have believed that Walz would act as a great surrogate throughout the presidential campaign. His presence on the national stage would enable her to do what she is currently doing, which is avoiding all but the most staged media encounters and campaign events. Unfortunately for the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, Walz spends much of his time “misspeaking,” embellishing his resume, or opening his mouth and inserting his foot in it. Who wouldn't be willing to bet that, come Nov. 1 or 2, neither Harris nor Walz is anywhere to be found in public until the dust settles?
