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Splits between the Electoral College and popular vote
 Date: November 8, 2016 |
Winner: Donald Trump (R) Hillary Clinton (D) • Jill Stein (G) • Gary Johnson (L) • Vice presidential candidates |
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Last updated on December 19, 2016
Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote in the 2016 presidential election, while Hillary Clinton received the most votes nationwide.[1] When the members of the Electoral College met on December 19, 2016, Trump received 304 votes to Clinton's 227.[2] As of that same day, however, Clinton led in the popular vote, 48.3 percent to 46.2 percent. Clinton had 65,844,969 votes. Trump had 62,979,984, a difference of more than 2.8 million.
Have splits between the popular vote and the Electoral College ever happened before? What caused the mismatch in 2016? And why is it significant?
Has this ever happened before?
- See also: Electoral College
Yes, but it's rare. Prior to 2016, splits between the popular vote and the Electoral College have occurred three times: 2000, 1888, and 1876. In addition to this, a candidate in 1824 won the election while failing to receive the most votes nationwide or the most Electoral College votes. Past occurences are listed below in reverse chronological order. "PV" indicates the candidate who received the most votes nationwide. "EV" indicates the candidate who received the most Electoral College votes.
| 2000 Presidential election | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Party | Electoral votes | Popular vote |
| George W. Bush (EV) | Republican | 271 | 50,456,062 |
| Al Gore (PV) | Democratic | 266 | 50,996,582 |
| 1888 Presidential election | |||
| Candidate | Party | Electoral votes | Popular vote |
| Benjamin Harrison (EV) | Republican | 233 | 5,439, 853 |
| Grover Cleveland (PV) | Democratic | 168 | 5,540,309 |
| 1876 Presidential election | |||
| Candidate | Party | Electoral votes | Popular vote |
| Rutherford B. Hayes (EV) | Republican | 185 | 4,036,298 |
| Samuel J. Tilden (PV) | Democratic | 184 | 4,300,590 |
| *Honorable Mention: 1824 Presidential election | |||
| Candidate | Party | Electoral votes | Popular vote |
| Andrew Jackson (PV) | Democratic-Republican | 99 | 153,544 |
| John Quincy Adams | Democratic-Republican | 84 | 108,740 |
| William H. Crawford | Democratic-Republican | 41 | 40,856 |
| Henry Clay | Democratic-Republican | 37 | 47,531 |
| Source: 270toWin, "Historical presidential elections," accessed November 9, 2016 | |||
*Technically, there was not a split between the Electoral College and the popular vote in 1824, because the winning candidate received neither the most votes nationwide nor the most Electoral College votes that year. No candidate won a majority in the Electoral College—131 votes at the time—which sent the decision to the House of Representatives. The House picked Adams, who came in second in both the popular vote total and the Electoral College.
What caused the split in 2016?
A combination of three things seem to have led to the mismatch between the Electoral College and the popular vote in 2016.
- The first part of the combination were Clinton’s significant vote totals in large blue states like New York and California, where, between the two, she pulled in more than 13 million votes. Big margins in these states inflated Clinton’s popular vote totals while doing little to offset her deficit in the Electoral College.
- Similarly, Clinton performed well in several red states that she ended up losing. In Texas, for example, she received 3.8 million votes. Barack Obama’s final vote count in Texas in 2012 was 3.3 million. Clinton also added significantly to her popular vote totals in Arizona and Georgia. Trump won both of those states.
- The third part of the combination were several close races in battleground states with large populations. In states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, razor thin margins separated Clinton and Trump.
Why is a split between the electoral college and the popular vote significant?
Constitutionally, it isn’t significant. Because the U.S. Constitution requires presidents to be elected through the Electoral College, the nationwide popular vote is irrelevant. But mismatches between the Electoral College and popular vote do have political significance in that they feed into debates about the future of the Electoral College system.
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An Electoral College primer: The Electoral College system is laid out in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. In this system, each state receives a number of votes equal to the total number of their delegation to the United States Congress. The vote casters, known as electors, are chosen by rules differing in each state, but many are elected during each party's state conventions. Electors have traditionally cast their votes for president in December, following the general election in November. The Electoral College system emerged as a compromise between the framers of the Constitution who were divided over the election of the president by popular vote, by Congress, or by state legislatures. Benjamin Ginsberg, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, writes in his book Presidential Government, the framers viewed the Electoral College as "an actual decision making body that would reduce the uncertain impact of popular participation and increase the likelihood that only well-qualified would be elected to the presidency."[3] One of the framers, Alexander Hamilton, explained in The Federalist Papers, "It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. ... It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice."[4] Another intention of the framers in designing the Electoral College was to balance the electoral influence of heavily and lightly populated states. Some feared that the popular election of presidents would disproportionately favor heavily populated states with large urban centers and lots of voters at the expense of lightly populated states with fewer voters. James Madison, a supporter of the election of presidents by popular vote, noted in 1787 that Northern states would have an advantage over Southern states in national popular vote elections, because "the right of suffrage was more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern states." The Electoral College, it was argued, could help even out such disparities.[5] The political power of electors has decreased since the time of the framers. While framers like Hamilton intended for electors to vote their conscience in elections—the Constitution does not dictate how presidential electors are to cast their votes—electors today generally vote for the candidate that receives the most votes in their state or the candidates of the party that nominated them to serve as electors. Electors who choose not to vote for the candidate receiving the popular vote or the candidates of the party that nominated them are known as "faithless electors." Faithless electors are rare. Between 1900 and 2012, there were only eight known instances of faithless electors. Several states have passed laws against faithless electors and require electors to vote for the candidate receiving the popular vote in their state, for the candidate of the party that nominated them to serve as electors, or in accordance with any pledge they may have been required to make at the time of their nomination. In states with these types of laws, faithless electors can be fined or replaced, or their votes can be nullified.[6][7] |
Arguments for and against the Electoral College
Groups such as National Popular Vote Inc., a 501(c)(4) organization, argue that a national popular vote should replace the Electoral College system. On its website, National Popular Vote Inc. states that, under the Electoral College system, presidential candidates do not “pay attention to the issues of concern to voters in states where the statewide outcome is a foregone conclusion.” Awarding the presidency based on the popular vote, the group argues, “ensures that every vote, in every state, will matter in every presidential election.”[8]
Other supporters of the popular election of presidents have argued that the Electoral College disproportionately favors smaller states. Because each state has a minimum of three electoral votes, votes from those in the least populated states technically count more toward the electoral vote than votes from those in more populous states. For instance, in 1988, the seven least populated states combined to count for as many electoral votes as Florida, yet the combined population of those states was less than that of Florida.[9]
On the other hand, groups like the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, have warned against replacing the Electoral College system with a national popular vote. Hans von Spakovsky, for example, wrote a legal memorandum for Heritage in which he argued, “The NPV would devalue the minority interests that the Founders sought to protect, create electoral administrative problems, encourage voter fraud, and radicalize the U.S. political system. It also would likely violate the U.S. Constitution’s Compact Clause while directly contravening the Founders’ view of federalism and a representative republic. In an age of perceived political dysfunction, effective policies already in place—especially successful policies established by this nation’s Founders, such as the Electoral College—should be preserved.”[10]
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, adds that a national popular vote system could disproportionately favor the most populous regions of the country. "We would probably see elections dominated by the most populous regions of the country or by several large metropolitan areas. In the 2000 election, for example, Vice President Gore could have put together a plurality or majority in the Northeast, parts of the Midwest, and California. The victims in such elections would be those regions too sparsely populated to merit the attention of presidential candidates," wrote John Samples, the vice president of the Cato Institute, in the immediate aftermath of the 2000 election.[11]
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
- See also: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
One effort of national popular vote advocates is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among several states to award their electoral votes to the candidate that receives the most votes nationwide, regardless of that candidate's performance in their state. The basic idea of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is that the Electoral College would remain intact, but if, for example, the Republican presidential candidate received the most votes nationwide, his or her electors in states that are part of the compact would automatically be declared the winners.
Click here to learn more about the compact, including how many states have joined.
Donald Trump's comments on the Electoral College
Donald Trump was the fourth person to become president by winning the electoral vote without having received the most votes nationwide. On November 15, 2016, Trump tweeted, "The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!"
In an interview with The New York Times on November 22, 2016, Trump stated, "I’d rather do the popular vote from the standpoint — I’d think we’d do actually as well or better — it’s a whole different campaign. It’s like, if you’re a golfer, it’s like match play versus stroke play. It’s a whole different game. But I think the popular vote would have been easier in a true sense because you’d go to a few places. I think that’s the genius of the Electoral College." He added that he was "never a fan of the electoral college until now. ... What it does do is it gets you out to see states that you’ll never see otherwise."[12]
See also
- Trump wins White House as “Blue Wall” crumbles
- Presidential election, 2016
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential battleground states, 2016
- National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
Footnotes
- ↑ Electors officially voted in state capitals throughout the country on December 19, 2016. Congress officially counted the votes of the electors and declared a winner on January 6, 2017. Click here for more.
- ↑ Trump and Clinton were projected to receive 306 and 232 votes, respectively. Read about what happened here.
- ↑ Ginsberg, B. (2016). Presidential Government, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
- ↑ U.S. Congress, "Federal No. 68," accessed November 10, 2016
- ↑ Nedelsky, J. (1990). Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism: The Madisonian Framework and its Legacy, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press
- ↑ Archives.gov, "About the Electors," accessed July 28, 2016
- ↑ Congressional Research Service, "The Electoral College: How it works in contemporary presidential elections," April 13, 2016
- ↑ National Popular Vote, "Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote," accessed November 10, 2016
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "The Electoral College," May 1992
- ↑ Heritage, "Destroying the Electoral College: The Anti-Federalist National Popular Vote Scheme," October 27, 2011
- ↑ Cato Institute, "In Defense of the Electoral College," November 10, 2016
- ↑ The New York Times, "Donald Trump’s New York Times Interview: Full Transcript," November 23, 2016
