Trump pushes to swap Electoral College for popular vote

President Donald Trump on Thursday voiced support for doing away with the Electoral College for presidential elections in favor of a popular vote because the latter would be “much easier to win.”

The president’s support for a popular-vote presidential election came as an aside during a freewheeling Thursday morning interview with “Fox & Friends,” the Fox News morning show he is known to watch and from which he receives almost unflinchingly positive coverage. Trump made the remark amid a larger point about public figures who publicly support him in turn benefiting from a boost of popularity from Trump supporters.


“Remember, we won the election. And we won it easily. You know, a lot of people say ‘Oh, it was close.’ And by the way, they also like to always talk about Electoral College. Well, it’s an election based on the Electoral College. I would rather have a popular election, but it’s a totally different campaign,” Trump said. “It’s as though you're running — if you're a runner, you're practicing for the 100-yard dash as opposed to the 1-mile.”

“The Electoral College is different. I would rather have the popular vote because it's, to me, it's much easier to win the popular vote,” he continued.

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Despite projections ahead of Election Day that the Electoral College map did not offer him a clear path to victory, Trump cruised past the 270-electoral-vote threshold, ultimately earning 306. (Trump officially earned 304 votes, thanks to two electors who voted against the president even though he won their state.)

But despite Trump’s claims that his election was a landslide victory, he has at times been haunted by the fact that Democrat Hillary Clinton beat him in the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, a result Trump has chalked up to a strategic decision by his 2016 team not to campaign in blue states. Only one Republican, George W. Bush in 2004, has won the nationwide popular vote in presidential elections dating back to 1992.