During his latest appearance on “Meet the Press,” Donald Trump brought up the election’s popular vote unprompted. “One thing that’s very important, in terms of the election, I love that I won the popular vote — and by a lot,” the president-elect boasted.
The claim was demonstrably foolish: Trump won the popular vote, fair and square, but according to the latest tallies, the margin was 1.48%. It might make the incoming Republican president feel better to think he won the popular vote by “a lot,” but in reality, the margin was among the closest in American history.
But the morning after the “Meet the Press” episode aired, the president-elect published an item to his social media platform that was apparently intended to extend the conversation. The entire missive read in its entirety:
The Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the Popular Vote in future Elections. They want all future Presidential Elections to be based exclusively on the Electoral College!
Even by Trump standards, this was bizarre.
There are no Democrats “fighting hard” to eliminate the popular vote in future elections. That doesn’t even make sense at the most basic level: The popular vote simply refers to the cumulative total of ballots cast for each candidate. To “get rid of” the popular vote would mean ending the practice of counting votes.
As for the idea that Democrats “want all future Presidential Elections to be based exclusively on the Electoral College,” this is every bit as baffling. In the United States, presidential elections are already based on the Electoral College. This isn’t a model Democrats are demanding; it’s literally the status quo that’s been in place for centuries.
What’s more, if Trump is convinced that Democrats are somehow eager to champion the Electoral College and leave the system untouched, I’d remind the Republican that there’s overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Not only did a recent Pew Research Center study find that 80% of Democratic voters support scrapping the Electoral College and moving to a model based on the popular vote, but a great many leading Democratic officials believe the same thing, as evidenced by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s public comments less than a month before Election Day. At this point, I could marvel for a few more paragraphs about how ridiculous it was to see Trump peddle such a delusional lie, but perhaps there’s a more constructive way to approach this. In fact, this might be an instance in which Democrats — whose presidential ticket has won the popular vote in seven of the last nine national elections — benefit from calling Trump’s bluff. If Trump is serious about prioritizing the popular vote and discarding the Electoral College, Democrats have plenty of reasons to enthusiastically endorse such an overhaul. Would the Republican leader take yes for an answer?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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