Initiative to Elect U.S. President by National Popular Vote May Be Within Reach; Connecticut Already On Board
/The United States may be on the brink of changing the way in which Presidents are elected, an effort more than a decade in the making.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which promises that participating states would give all their electoral votes to the presidential ticket that wins the national popular vote, rather than the candidate winning the popular vote in their individual state.
The compact takes effect only when enough states sign on to guarantee that the national popular vote winner wins the presidency. This means that states with a combined total of 270 electoral votes—a majority of the Electoral College—must join the compact for it to take effect.
Connecticut is already on board.
Nearly a decade ago, on May 24, 2018, Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy signed the National Popular Vote bill, making Connecticut the 12th jurisdiction in the nation to enact the bill.
The Connecticut Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill by 21-14 vote earlier that month. A total of 68 state representatives and 13 senators were co-sponsors (list of co-sponsors) of the National Popular Vote bill during the 2018 legislative session (SB-408) which passed and was signed into law.
The Hartford Courant reported that “The state Senate voted 21-14 on a bipartisan basis. The House had approved the measure by a narrow 77-73 vote that came in mostly along party lines.” The Courant also noted that “The issue has been highly controversial after close elections in which the eventual president, including Republicans Donald Trump and George W. Bush, were elected under the Electoral College without winning the national popular vote.”
The National Popular Vote website points out that “because of state winner-take-all laws, five of our 47 Presidents have entered office without winning the most popular votes nationwide. The loser of the national popular vote would have become President but for about 119,000 votes in 2004, 43,000 in 2020, and 240,000 in 2024.”
Fast-forward to November 2026.
In this month’s mid-term elections, voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona gave the Democrats majorities in both houses of the legislature and the governor's office. These 5 states have a total of 61 electoral votes, according to published reports.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is currently law in 18 states and the District of Columbia. These 19 jurisdictions have 222 electoral votes. Thus, the Compact is currently 48 votes short of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate it.
If all 5 states were to approve the Compact in 2027, the National Popular Vote website explains, the Compact would have 283 electoral votes - 13 votes more than the 270 needed.
Back in 2018, upon Senate passage, then-Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy and Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman issued a statement commending "the legislature for sending [the National Popular Vote bill] to the Governor's desk.”
At that time, Senate Majority Leader Robert Duff of Norwalk, who is slated to become Senate President when the General Assembly convenes in 2027, said “The winner of the national popular vote should win the presidency. By joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, we can move our nation one step closer to truly honoring the will of the voters.”
By 2018, 10 states and the District of Columbia - possessing 165 electoral votes - had approved the interstate compact, which represented 61 percent of the 270 electoral votes necessary to activate it. Connecticut’s neighboring states - New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island - were among those that had approved legislation to do so. That number has since grown.
Advocates point out that the current system of state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes has resulted in presidential candidates campaigning only in a small number of “battleground” states, rather than throughout the nation.
“The 2024 general-election campaign for President was concentrated on just 7 closely divided states” they indicate. “These 7 states have a little less than 20% of the U.S. population. That is, 80% of Americans were mere spectators to the 2024 presidential election.”
In a news release issued in 2018, the Senate Democratic caucus explained that:
· “The state-by-state, winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not set out in the United States Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention, nor was it discussed in the Federalist Papers.
· The Founding Fathers did not design the system of allocating electoral votes currently used in most states. Rather, the Founding Fathers established the Electoral College and explicitly left allocation of those electoral votes to state legislators in Article II of the U.S. Constitution without any instructions on how states should use it.
· The winner-take-all rule was used by only three states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (all of which abandoned it by 1800).”
The New York Times has reported this week that lawmakers in key states have said during the past week “that they had already begun having conversations … about introducing legislation to join the agreement in the next session, and were hopeful that they would succeed ahead of 2028.”
Looking towards the 2027 legislative session, a Wisconsin legislator told the Times “National popular vote will be something that we’ll prioritize early in the session.”
