Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz said that the Electoral College “needs to go” during a Tuesday fundraiser, Politico reported.
Walz made the comment while addressing the crowd at the event, which also featured Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, after reportedly making similar comments at a previous fundraising function in Seattle, according to Politico. Some Democrats have railed against the Electoral College system because it can allow a candidate who loses the national popular vote to still win the presidency, which happened when former President Donald Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race.
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“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” Walz said, according to Politico. “We need a national popular vote that is something. But that’s not the world we live in.”
Notably, Walz’s running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, said that she is “open to the discussion” of doing away with the Electoral College during a 2019 appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” while running for the White House in the 2020 race. However, abolishing the Electoral College — touted by proponents as a bulwark against mob rule — is not a Harris-Walz campaign position, a campaign spokesperson told Politico.
“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,” the campaign spokesperson told the outlet. “And, he was thanking them for their support that is helping fund those efforts.”
Other than Trump, the only other president to lose the popular vote and win the presidency via the Electoral College since 1900 was former President George W. Bush in 2000, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
The Harris-Walz campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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