LePage claims national popular vote bill will silence ‘white people’

Speaking to the hosts of the WVOM morning show this week, former Governor Paul LePage lambasted a bill being considered by Maine’s legislature to join with other states to essentially bypass the Electoral College and ensure that the President is elected by the national popular vote.

“Actually what would happen if they do what they say they’re gonna do is white people will not have anything to say. It’s only going to be the minorities that would elect. It would be California, Texas, Florida,” said LePage.

The former governor, calling into the show from his home in Florida, also labeled the proposal “an insane process” and warned that “we’re gonna be forgotten people.”

The proposal would actually, if adopted by a sufficient number of states, ensure that every voter, regardless of race, has the same say in electing the president.

LePage’s rhetoric continues a trend among Republicans of mainstreaming beliefs formerly relegated to the white supremacist fringe. In 2016, then-governor LePage held a press conference, ostensibly to apologize for leaving a vulgar and threatening voicemail, in which he announced that “the enemy right now” is “people of color or people of Hispanic origin.”

Since leaving office and leaving the state, LePage has continued to call in to conservative radio shows on a weekly basis. He has also repeatedly threatened to challenge Governor Janet Mills for re-election in 2022. Earlier this month, Maine Republican Party Chair Demi Kouzounas declared that LePage would soon move back to Maine and lead a political organization to “counteract the Maine People’s Alliance.”

Commenters on Twitter after LePage’s remarks were shared on Wednesday noted that while he’s wrong about the particulars, race is an instructive lens through which to view the current presidential electoral system. The power of white voters is significantly magnified by the Electoral College, which itself is a product of the nation’s history of slavery.

The national popular vote bill, sponsored by Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Aroostook), will have a public hearing this Friday before the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee.

(Maine Republican Party official photo)