New Poll Finds Most Americans Back Adopting Popular Vote to Select President

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A new poll demonstrates strong support for amending the U.S. Constitution to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a popular vote model.

Under the Electoral College — the archaic system of selecting the president of the United States — states are given electoral votes based on how many members of Congress they have. Candidates obtain these votes by winning statewide races, or, in the case of Nebraska and Maine, by winning individual districts.

In most circumstances, the Electoral College selects the same winner a popular vote model would. But a handful of times in U.S. history — including in the 2016 race won by President Donald Trump — the Electoral College has selected a winner who did not win a majority or even a plurality of votes, choosing the second-place candidate instead.

Although other pathways to implementing a popular vote system are being explored, the most lasting and legally sufficient way to enact such a model would be through a constitutional amendment. According to an Economist/YouGov poll published on Tuesday, a majority of Americans are in favor of such an amendment.

The survey found that 56 percent of Americans would approve of an amendment to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a popular vote system. Only 23 percent of Americans didn’t like the idea, while another 21 percent said they weren’t sure.

Across the entire 21st century so far, more Americans than not have preferred changing the system of picking the president to a popular vote model. Only in 2016, when Trump won the presidency, did majority support slip to a plurality. After that, voters’ sentiments shifted again, with a majority backing the change ever since.

The dip in support for the idea was likely due to Republican supporters of Trump wanting to preserve the system that helped him win the White House. Following years of decision-making leading to lower approval numbers, this week’s Economist/YouGov poll now shows that even a narrow plurality of GOP-leaning voters support shifting to a popular vote system for the presidential election, with 43 percent backing an amendment for that purpose and 40 percent opposed.

Notably, Trump himself once opposed keeping the Electoral College in place. In 2012, when it initially appeared on Election Night that former President Barack Obama might win the election with only the Electoral College and not the popular vote, Trump wrote on social media that “the electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.”

Even in the week after he won in 2016, Trump insisted he still didn’t like the Electoral College, preferring future elections to be decided by popular vote. Said Trump in an interview:

I’m not going to change my mind just because I won. I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win.

Days later, Trump reversed his position. He has vehemently defended the Electoral College ever since.

The Economist/YouGov poll also asked respondents their views on terminating the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which places term limits on presidents. Trump has frequently toyed with the idea of running for a third term, despite the amendment limiting him to the two he has already served.

“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” the text of the Amendment states.

In spite of that directive, Trump has claimed in the past that “there are methods” around the 22nd Amendment. He also once stated in an interview that he is “not joking” about the possibility of running again.

Americans largely favor keeping the amendment in place, the poll found, with 70 percent opposed to changing the 22nd Amendment and only 16 percent in favor of lifting its restrictions. Even a majority of people who voted for Trump in 2024, 56 percent, said they want the two-term limit to remain.

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