President-elect Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Sunday night and declared that Democrats were “fighting hard” to make all future presidential elections based “exclusively” on the Electoral College.
The curious late-night post prompted many to wonder if the incoming president was trolling liberals after finally winning the popular vote on his third try. At the same time, some progressives hoped that Trump’s assertion could lead conservatives to be “radicalized” against the notion of relying on states’ electoral votes to determine presidential elections.
Despite opinion polls showing that eight in 10 Democratic voters prefer to see the winner of the presidential election decided by whoever receives the most votes nationally while the majority of Republicans prefer the state elector system, Trump insisted that Democrats were working to keep the Electoral College.
“The Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the Popular Vote in future Elections,” he wrote. “They want all future Presidential Elections to be based exclusively on the Electoral College!”
Naturally, the post raised eyebrows because of the incoming president’s concerted efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden, which featured a fake elector scheme that would flip states that Biden won over to Trump. The plot to overthrow the 2020 election, which Trump lost by over 7 million votes nationally, included a pressure campaign against then-Vice President Mike Pence that eventually resulted in an attempted insurrection.
Supporters of the president-elect, however, felt that Trump was merely tweaking liberals with his Truth Social post as a way of highlighting the fact that he became the first Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote in 20 years.
“OMG: Trump is hardcore trolling the Democrats right now,” Florida’s Voice assistant news director Eric Daugherty tweeted. “After winning the popular vote, he says Democrats now want to get rid of it and ensure the presidency depends only on the Electoral College. Terms accepted, Democrats.”
Right-wing influencer Johnny MAGA also said that Trump had trolled the Democrats after winning the popular vote against Kamala Harris, adding a crying laughing emoji for effect. At the same time, though, some prominent conservatives appeared to believe that because “Trump has won with a mandate, Democrats want to get rid of the Popular Vote.”
Needless to say, the current law ignores the national vote totals and instead relies purely on state electors, who award electoral votes based on the state vote totals (except in Nebraska and Maine, where they are allocated via congressional district).
While some decided to take Trump literally and felt he was showing signs of “dementia” by “falsely suggesting” the elections aren’t currently based on the Electoral College, others took the opportunity to note that Trump’s “only consistent position is whatever electoral method he thinks is more likely to [produce] a Republican is the one he supports.”
Indeed, prior to his victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump claimed that the Electoral College is a “disaster for a democracy.” However, after gaining more electoral votes than Clinton despite losing to her by nearly 3 million in the popular vote, Trump changed his tune. “The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play,” he tweeted at the time. “Campaigning is much different!”
In the end, many on the left urged Democrats to “let him cook” and convince Republicans that they indeed want to “fight hard” against using the popular vote to decide presidential elections.
“This is true and I encourage all Republicans to be radicalized against the electoral college,” Rolling Stone reporter Asawin Suebsaeng posted on BlueSky.
