Since the November 2016 election, not a day goes by that diehard Democrats or Hillary Clinton loyalists fail to point out that the Democratic nominee won the national popular vote over Republican President Donald Trump by more than 3 million ballots.

Yet, two prominent Republicans stepped forward this week to profess their support for a system that would make the popular vote the gold standard for presidential election results without tarnishing the Electoral College.

Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele and former Michigan Republican Party chairman Saul Anuzis wrote an Op-Ed piece for Breitbart that endorses the National Popular Vote movement, which was previously associated with Blue States.

Steele and Anuzis say they are following Trump’s wishes.

The National Popular Vote plan would gradually make the raw national vote totals the determining factor in choosing the presidency, without seeking a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College.

The way it would work is that states that reach a presidential election majority, 270 electoral votes, would sign a compact pledging that their electors will vote for whichever candidate wins the popular vote. That would be the promise made, by law, regardless of the Electoral College outcome, by electors within each of these particular states. The constitution allows states full autonomy in the method of choosing their electors.

Steele and Anuzis make their case:

While a national popular vote would be more representative and fair (Trump) also supports keeping the Electoral College, which guarantees elections will continue to be run, supervised, and administered locally by the states and not nationalized as a constitutional amendment would require.

We believe President Trump is right and that the American people should consider following the president’s lead on this issue and seriously explore the National Popular Vote Compact, which both of us support.

… This is an idea whose time has come.

While the Democrats have established an Electoral College advantage in recent cycles by maintaining strong support in the biggest states, some Republican critics argue that a popular vote standard would make presidential elections a contest largely waged in heavily populated urban areas where a diverse population of Democrats dominate.

The Op-Ed in Breitbart, adorned with a misleading headline, offered Steele and Anuzis the opportunity to score political points that contradict the website’s ardently pro-GOP stance.

“There is merit to President Trump’s argument that he would have won a national popular vote,” they wrote, adding Trump’s own counter-argument to the “Hillary won” claims by liberal Democrats.

“I would’ve gone to California where I didn’t go at all. I would’ve gone to New York where I didn’t campaign at all,” Trump said. “I would’ve easily won the popular vote, much easier, in my opinion, than winning the electoral college. I ended up going to 19 different states. I went to the state of Maine four times, for one.”

Anuzis, a former RNC member who made an unsuccessful runs for RNC chair in 2009 and 2011, argued for the National Popular Vote Compact in 2011. At the time Anuzis was especially irked by GOP president nominee John McCain’s decision to pull his campaign out of Michigan with several weeks to go in the 2008 election.

Here’s what he wrote at the time:

(With a popular vote standard) presidential candidates will have to win the war of ideas in all 50 states, rather than a war over the parochial interests of a small number of them. Conservatives in the Mountain West, whose votes have been taken for granted, will see presidential visits after the primaries for the first time in decades as candidates. Republicans in blue states will have a reason to get out and vote.

The latter will help down-ticket candidates enormously. As chairman of the Michigan Republican Party in 2008, I witnessed firsthand the consequences when a presidential candidate decides to cut and run on a particular state.

Republican voters won’t turn out for presidential elections when they feel as though their vote won’t matter, and that has a profound impact on results for other candidates on the ballot. We lost two congressional seats and at least six state House seats in 2008 because the John McCain campaign had determined they could not win Michigan’s Electoral College votes. Our votes no longer mattered.

Skeptics of the National Popular Vote movement should note that the effort, which began more than a decade ago, has already secured the backing of 10 states and the District of Columbia, totaling 165 electoral votes. The plan has been introduced in 50 state legislatures and, in addition to the states in support, the interstate compact passed in one legislative chamber (as of 2016) in 12 more states that add up to 96 electoral votes.

The partial success in those states, if completed, would put the National Popular Vote compact at 261 electoral votes, just nine short of making it a reality.

The states so far that have passed the measure are only traditionally Democratic-leaning states and none is a battleground: California, Illinois, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state.

However, the states where at least one legislative chamber has supported the compact include Purple States and Red States such as North Carolina, Nevada, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, Arizona and Oklahoma.

 

Photo: Former GOP chairman Michael Steele (second from left) discusses Republican politics with Saul Anuzis (second from right) and eventual RNC chairman Reince Priebus (far left).

Fox News screenshot