Democrats Eye Electoral College Overhaul Through State-Level Compact
Democrats campaigned on making everyday life cheaper. But a Townhall opinion column by Larry O’Connor argues that their statehouse victories could open the door to a very different priority: changing how America picks its president.
The vehicle is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. It would not formally erase the Electoral College. Instead, participating states would award their electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote, even when their own voters chose someone else.
That distinction matters. The electors would still exist, meet and cast ballots. But once the agreement took effect, the national vote total would determine which candidate received the participating states’ electoral votes.
For conservatives who value the state-by-state presidential contest, that is no small procedural adjustment. It would fundamentally change which election result controls those votes.
In his November 5, 2026, column, O’Connor reports that 18 states and Washington, D.C., have signed on to the compact, accounting for 222 electoral votes. The agreement would activate when participating states collectively hold at least 270, the number needed to elect a president.
On those figures, supporters need another 48 electoral votes.
O’Connor points to five battleground states where Democrats appear to have won control of both legislative chambers and the governor’s office: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada. According to the column, none currently belongs to the compact.
Pennsylvania carries 19 electoral votes. Michigan has 15, Arizona has 11, Wisconsin has 10 and Nevada has six. Together, that is 61. Adding all five to the total cited in the column would bring the compact to 283 electoral votes.
Supporters would not need every one of those states. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada would contribute 50 electoral votes, putting the total at 272, just above the activation threshold.
The practical consequence is easy to understand. O’Connor offers a hypothetical Pennsylvania election in which the Republican presidential nominee wins the state decisively. If Pennsylvania belonged to an active compact but the Democrat won the national popular vote, all 19 of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes would go to the Democrat.
The rule would cut both ways. A Republican winning the national popular vote would receive the electoral votes of participating Democratic states, too. This is not an arrangement that guarantees either party a victory. It changes the result that participating states agree to follow.
O’Connor’s central warning is about the route Democrats could take. Rather than pursuing a constitutional amendment, compact supporters would work through state governments’ authority over the appointment of presidential electors.
Still, the possibility of passage is not the same as passage. The column describes an opening for supporters and the electoral-vote arithmetic behind it. It does not establish that those five states have joined.
For voters expecting action on groceries, housing and electricity bills, the political question is straightforward: will newly empowered Democrats focus on those promises, or pursue a major change to presidential elections?
Source: Larry O’Connor’s opinion column at Townhall.