If delivering bread-and-butter change to voters isn’t enough, maybe newly empowered Democrats can take the White House in 2028 by binding the absurd, racism-rooted Electoral College—or at least the big chunks they now control—to the national popular vote:
If passed by enough states, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compactwould effectively nullify the Electoral College and, with it, the possibility of a candidate being elected president without winning the popular vote. Since the compact was introduced in 2006, 19 states have passed it, agreeing to assign their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. That amounts to 222 of the 270 electoral votes that a candidate needs to win the presidential election.
On Tuesday, Democrats took control of state legislatures and governorships in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada, all states that haven’t agreed to the compact. If all five vote to join, then the total number of electoral votes apportioned based on the national popular vote jumps to 283 [Hafiz Rashid, “Democrats Win Enough Seats Nationwide to End Electoral College,” The New Republic, 2026.11.04].
Rahm Emanuel will say Democrats should stay out of the esoteric and focus on enacting real kitchen-table policies to improve Americans’ standard of living. But if Democrats can flip governorships in Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, and Texas, they can walk the practical policy walk and chew the Electoral College’s gum at the same time. While making the economy work for regular folks, Democrats can make democracy (the thing they named their party for!) work for the people by letting us pick our President by popular vote.
p.s.: Thanks to the midterm results, Democratic governors will have Democratically controlled legislatures (both chambers) in 22 states holding 277 Electoral College votes. Three more states—Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina—worth 72 Electoral College votes will have Democratic governors with one legislative chamber controlled by Democrats.