During a speech last week, Democrat National Committee chairman Tom Perez incorrectly declared that the “Electoral College is not a creation of the Constitution.”
Perez, and many other Democrats have called for the abolition of the Electoral College due to Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump despite winning the popular vote. Among them is Hillary herself, who stated “We’ve moved toward one-person, one-vote, that’s how we select winners,” adding that the Electoral College should be ended. “I think it needs to be eliminated. I’d like to see us move beyond it, yes.”
Trump pointed out that his campaign strategy was based on the current system of rules, and that had the presidency been decided by the popular vote instead of the Electoral College, he simply would’ve campaigned differently.
“If the election were based on total popular vote I would have campaigned in N.Y. Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily,” Trump posted to Twitter, continuing:
The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2016
But back to Perez. He stated during a lecture at Indiana University Law School that the Electoral College wasn’t in the Constitution.
As the Washington Free Beacon pointed out however, “The Electoral College, a mechanism for indirect election of the president created by the Founding Fathers as a compromise between smaller states and larger states, is clearly laid out in Article II of the Constitution: ‘Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.'”
In the past Perez had commented that Trump “didn’t win” the presidential election because Hillary won the popular vote, but didn’t call for abolition of the College.
More from the Free Beacon report: “The DNC did not respond to an inquiry into whether Perez truly thinks the “Electoral College is not a creation of the Constitution.” There are many educational resources available on the Internet that provide clear explanations of what is in the document, including many from the National Constitution Center, which was established by Congress to provide a ‘non-partisan … understanding of the Constitution among the American people.'”
While it’s notable that twice in the past sixteen years a Democrat has won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College, it’s not true that the system entirely favors Republicans.
Let’s look at the electoral vote totals for the last seven elections (focusing on the winners’ totals only):
- 1992: Bill Clinton (D), 370 electoral votes
- 1996: Bill Clinton (D), 379 electoral votes
- 2000: George W. Bush (R), 271 electoral votes
- 2004: George W. Bush (R), 286 electoral votes
- 2008: Barack Obama (D), 365 electoral votes
- 2012: Barack Obama (D), 332 electoral votes
- 2016: Donald Trump (R), 306 electoral votes
Put in other terms, Democrats have received an average of 313.85 electoral votes in all elections dating back to 1992, while Republicans have averaged 224.14 electoral votes. From that point of view, Democrats overall have had an advantage in the Electoral College.
Perez has been under fire from Democrat insiders, as the RNC has out-fundraised the DNC 2:1 since the year began. When his only strategy is to change the rules, it’s not a promising sign for the Party.
Share this story if you love watching the Democrats in disarray!
