Kamala Harris’s running mate urges popular vote system but campaign says issue is not part of Democrats’ agenda

Kamala Harris’s running mate urges popular vote system but campaign says issue is not part of Democrats’ agenda

Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has called for the electoral college system of electing US presidents to be abolished and replaced with a popular vote principle, as operates in most democracies.

His comments – to an audience of party fundraisers – chime with the sentiments of a majority of American voters but risk destabilising the campaign of Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, who has not adopted a position on the matter, despite having previously voiced similar views.

“I think all of us know, the electoral college needs to go,” Walz told donors at a gathering at the home of the California governor, Gavin Newsom. “We need a national popular vote. We need to be able to go into York, Pennsylvania, and win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We need to be in Reno, Nevada, and win.”

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  • jj4211@lemmy.world
    92·
    22 days ago

    I can understand the strategy this time

    One of the big motivators for the left is that Trump has made credible threats about undermining votes and folks have signed up for it. A fear of having your voice forever silenced in the political system is a strong motivator. You can see because pundits for Trump keep trying to turn it around and say “nuh uh, the Democrats are the ones that will take away your voice”, which generally rings hollow because there’s zero history or rhetoric in the Democratic party to even suggest that.

    This could be the sort of rhetoric those Republicans have been wanting. A Democrat proposing a fundamental change to the biggest election that everyone knows would usually prevent a Republican win for that office. We wouldn’t have had either Republican president in the last 30 years. This could energize scared Republicans or feed the “but both sides” distraction.

    It may make tons of sense, but it’s a huge risk of scaring people to vote against Democrats that might have otherwise sat it out.