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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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Democrats' midterm landslide did far more than reshape Congress. Victories across a series of statehouses may have opened a path to one of the most consequential changes to presidential elections in generations, potentially allowing the winner of the national popular vote to effectively determine who enters the White House in 2028.
The possibility comes through the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), an agreement that would require participating states to award their presidential electors to the winner of the nationwide popular vote once states representing at least 270 electoral votes have joined.
The compact currently encompasses 222 electoral votes, meaning another 48 would be needed before the pact could take effect, and the Democratic gains in state legislatures and governors' mansions this week have suddenly made reaching that threshold substantially more conceivable.
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"I cannot think of a single redeeming quality to the current system, which leaves four out of five voters on the sidelines when we elect the president," Patrick Rosenstiel, a senior consultant with National Popular Vote, which is advocating for the change, told Newsweek.
"This includes Republicans like me in Minnesota and some of my Democratic friends in states like Oklahoma. A national popular vote for president will make every voter, in every state politically relevant in every presidential election. It's what is best for state and local political parties, and it will prove very popular with voters in every state."
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How the Electoral College Could Change
The Electoral College would not necessarily have to be abolished for the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide to be guaranteed the presidency.
Under the NPVIC, states agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, rather than awarding them based on the result within their own borders. The agreement only takes effect once participating states collectively control at least 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win the presidency.
So far, 18 states and the District of Columbia have enacted the compact, accounting for 222 electoral votes and leaving supporters 48 votes shy of the threshold.
The midterm elections could substantially change the political arithmetic.
"The five new trifecta states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada—have 61 Electoral College votes altogether," Steven Rogers, a political-science professor at Saint Louis University, told Newsweek Wednesday. "If each agrees to the Compact, it could effectively establish a national popular vote for the presidency."
The five states highlighted as potential additions to the compact together account for 61 electoral votes. Adding all five would bring the compact to 283, comfortably above the 270 threshold.
New Hampshire, with another four electoral votes, has also been identified by the National Popular Vote campaign as a potentially promising state.
Crucially, supporters would not need every single new state to get on board, with various combinations of the group able to push the plan over the line.
The consequences for a presidential election could be dramatic.
If the compact were in effect, a participating state could award its electoral votes to a candidate who lost that state, provided that candidate won the popular vote nationwide.
That means a Democrat could theoretically win Pennsylvania in 2028 but see the state's electors awarded to the Republican nominee if the GOP won more votes nationally, and vice versa.
"Adopting NPV without the buy-in of Red states would be a mistake," Vikram Amar, Distinguished Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law and one of the key voices on the NPV movement, told Newsweek Friday. "The idea of a national popular vote is not a ploy to elect Democrats; it is a question of principled election reform that, in theory, could help Republican or Democratic candidates. And it can't be viewed as a partisan measure if it is to have the credibility it needs."
The arrangement would not technically eliminate the Electoral College, as formally abolishing it would require amending the U.S. Constitution, which involves a significantly higher hurdle.
Will Democrats Actually Do It?
As the dust settles after the election this week, and with several weeks still to go before newly elected officials take up their roles in 2027, the question now is whether the newly Democratic-run states will be willing to participate in the effort at all.
"I think Democrats are likely to focus on the issues that won them this election, on the cost of living and housing and health care," Thad Kousser, a professor with the University of California San Diego's Department of Political Science, told Newsweek Wednesday.
"After 2016, Democrats were really focused on the Electoral College because they won the popular vote but did not win the Electoral College. We haven't seen that as much in recent years. That wasn't anything that led to Donald Trump's reelection in 2024, and so I think that's taken some of the wind out of the sails."
If the pact were implemented in full by 2028, it could mean a change in strategy in battleground states, as winning individual swing states would not be as critical for winning the White House.
Votes in safe states would become more strategically valuable instead, meaning Republicans would have more reason to increase turnout in California, for example, while Democrats would want to target deep red states they rarely touch.
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Rosentiel said that NPV comprised members from both major parties and independents, and that the movement was organized in the key states which had swung blue.
"We will support legislative sponsors and allied organizations alike and do everything in our power to ensure the democratic principle of one-person, one-vote governs the 2028 presidential election," he said.
Amar was less convinced that the changes could be made in time for the next presidential election, telling Newsweek the pact would take a lot of planning and time to implement, and may require Congressional backing.
"Accordingly, I think talk of implementing NPV in 2028 is nonsensical; way more than a year or so would be needed to get the project operational in a way that is unlikely to have major glitches," he said.
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