Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Friday made his case for eliminating the Electoral College and bragged about how he argues against the presidential election system in low-population states such as Iowa.
“Whether you are in D.C. or Puerto Rico, you deserve the same political representation,” the South Bend, Ind., mayor told attendees at a grassroots fundraiser in Alexandria, Va. The crowd cheered, to which Buttigieg added, “for the record, I have been saying that in Iowa, not just out here.”
Opponents of the Electoral College often argue that individual votes for president from lower-population states such as Iowa count more than those from high-population states like New York and California. Each state has two guaranteed Electoral college votes, because each state has two senators, plus votes equal to the number of members in the House of Representatives from that state, which is based on population. Most states assign all electoral college votes for president to the candidate who won the popular vote in that state.
Buttigieg has made eliminating the Electoral College a campaign issue. “States don’t vote, people vote, and everyone’s vote should count exactly the same. The Electoral College has to go,” his website says.
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, does not have any Electoral College votes because it does not have any voting members in Congress. While Washington, D.C., also does not have voting members of Congress, the 23rd Amendment gives it as many electoral votes as the least populous state. Presently, that number is three.
The Electoral College system led to President Trump winning the 2016 election even though his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million.
At the event Friday, Buttigieg also suggested he would not attack his opponents at the first Democratic presidential primary debate at the end of this month, where 20 candidates will debate over two nights.
“We’re also competing, and so our job is to each present why we would be the best nominee, why we’re the one best able to win, and why we’d make a great president,” Buttigieg said.
“But at the end of the day, we’re all on the same team,” he added. “The 22 people who don’t become the nominee have to support the one who does, and everything we do now should reflect that.”
Tickets at the sold-out “grassroots fundraiser” ranged from $25 to $1,000. Buttigieg and Democratic primary rival Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota will headline the Democratic Party of Virginia’s Blue Commonwealth Dinner on Saturday evening.
