Any Republicans want to ditch the Electorial College?

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In the US we have this institution called the "electorial college" that picks our presidents.

During the twentieth first century the GOP won the oval office at least twice despite loosing the popular vote because of the EC.

So folks of both parties have partisan self interest coloring their opinions about retaining the EC vs abolishing it for direct voter election.

So lets take partisan self interest off of the table.

Are there any GOPers out there who, despite the fact that your party has benefited from the EC, hate the EC in principle, and would like to abolish what many see as an archaic institution? If so here is your place to argue for abolishing it.

If you're the opposite: A Democrat who, despite partisan self interest, favors the principle of the EC and want to keep it then there is another campanion thread to this one where you can state your case.

I have mixed thoughts on it.I am a libertarian-leaning Republican but I would like to switch to some other form of votting system like in European countries ecause I think we need more viable political parties than just the Democrats and Republicans.I just think the Democrats and Republicans are ba orcally two side of the same coin.I just think the two parties divide the country on culture war issues to get votes and the parties serve the billionaires and corporations.But I think I may classify myself as just an American because the Founding Fathers did not like political parties.I dont like the winner-take-all system.

I know my party has benefited greatly from the Electoral College but it never made sense why we just could not have a popular vote to decide it.I am old enough to remember the 2000 election and that was so crazy.I am willing to possibly vote for a Democrat if he or she would be better for the country.I am strongly considering voting for Biden because I dont like how far the Republican Party has come from the days of Eisenhower and Reagan and the Bushes.I am just confused politically maybe I am independent.

I ultimately want the Electoral College to be possibly abolished so the Libertarian Party can become a major force in American politics.I just am a Republican becasue its been the lesser of two evils fo me.My best solution would be to keep the Electoral College but abolish political parties in Amercia since America did not start out with parties.I also wish we could have more direct democracyMaybe the past 23 years in America would have been better if Gore won.I miss Bill Clinton believe it or not.

Interesting response.

I also think that "first past the post" sucks. America should at least experiment with "ranked choice voting".

The Founding Fathers were the property owning gentry of the colonies who envisioned elections to be debating tournaments between wise gentlemen who could pay for their own campaigns. But even they descended into both forming parties and into viscious nasty mudslinging once they put the democracy they invented into action.

Political parties are necessary to provide the infrastructure to support candidates. I cant imagine how any democracy can dispense with them.

But on the mainland of Europe each democracy has dozens of tiny "splinter parties". While the Anglosphere countries each have essentially a two party system. Britain has Labor and Conservative, the US has Dem. and GOP, Australia Labor and Liberal, and Israel (an english speaking former British Protectorate that should also be counted as part of the Anglosphere) has Labor and Likud. Why that difference in democracy between the English speaking countries on one hand and continental Europe on the other, I dont know.

That's not quite correct.

Israel in particular - very strange to lump it in. It has an entirely different political system. In the 2022 elections, ten political parties won seats - and Labor finished last of those ten.

The UK and Australia (and Canada) are closer to the US, because they use first-past-the-post, but those countries do also manage to support smaller parties with their own distinct niches who work hard to get local support.

In the US, the Libertarian and Green parties don't work as hard on gaining local support. There doesn't seem to be any serious effort to make them into political players. They're basically LARPs. Nobody's saying "here's how the Green Party raised this important issue with the local government and won change, vote for us for city council", it's mostly just navel-gazing about how Both Parties Bad without an organised attempt to get elected. Consequently their support is spread pretty thinly across the country, without the localised support necessary for winning seats under FPTP.

So by ditch the EC. do you mean switching to the popular vote? I think it would be the end of the Republican party as we know it if so. I think in the long run it would turn what is for all practical purposes is a 2-party system into a 1-party system. (and if you're in the "winning" party I suppose that would be fine) but I think we would lose some of the benefits of a partisan government along with the drawbacks.

Thats rather curious logic.

you're saying that we would end up with one party rule (basically a dictatorship like the old USSR), because eliminating the EC, and switching to the popular vote would destroy the GOP and leave the Democrats alone standing without competition (though I guess they would still have internal competition at the primary level, but not in the general election).

So (a) you're admitting that the GOP cant make it on its own without being artificially propped up by the EC. And (b) you're assuming that if one party folds then other will just monopolize for ever.

If the GOP collapsed the Democrat party would probably quickly fission in two, and we would return to a two party system (or maybe the Green Party would expand to become a major party...either way). So instead of having a center right party (GOP) and center left party (Dems) you would have a center left party (Joe Biden, Obama, Hillary), and a far left party (Sanders, AOC).

When allies against a common enemy finally defeat their common enemy they typically start to bicker amongst themselves.

If you are a Republican you dont like that scenario- still having choice, but the choice between (what you would view as) a lesser and greater evil. But that scenario is based upon your own assumption that the GOP just cant deliver the popular votes any more.


So that raises the question "is the old style (pre Trump)Reagan/Mitt Romney GOP so obsolete, and so unable to craft a message that it cant survive without the kindness of strangers, and without the EC magnifying the power of small population rural states?"


The current Trump/MAGA GOP is a criminal cult, like Scientology, so it HAS to be reigned in. And ironically right now we DO kind of have the Democrats forced into 'one party rule' because its the only party that respects the rule of law.And SOME body has to provide adult supervision on Capitol Hill.

But if the likes of George Will and the Abraham Lincoln Society will be able to restore the old pre Trump non populist GOP to its former glory...would that just be propping up a dead horse? Thats what you seem to be saying.