Maine joined a pledge to ditch the Electoral College. Dems’ national wins could make it reality.

Democratic wins across the country open a path to get rid of the Electoral College by way of a compact Maine signed onto two years ago.  

Currently, votes in a presidential election don’t go to candidates but to a state’s electors. Each state gets a set number of electors equivalent to the size of its congressional delegation. Every state has two U.S. senators but the number of U.S. House of Representatives members vary, based on population size. A candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes, a simple majority, to win the presidency. 

In 2024, the Maine Legislature adopted something called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which Democratic Gov. Janet Mills allowed to become law without her signature. States that are part of the compact pledge their Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate with the most overall votes across the country. However, it would only take effect once states with a total of 270 Electoral College votes have joined. 

Including Maine, 18 states and the District of Columbia have ratified the agreement, giving the compact a total of 222 electoral votes. 

But Democrats took control of several more state governments during the midterm elections, opening up the possibility of securing the 48 more needed to reach the threshold. 

Overall, Democrats have been leading the charge on the compact, though as Mills’ hesitation and a recent unsuccessful attempt to remove Maine from the agreement show, the debate does not fall squarely along party lines. 

Some more votes could come from Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which now have Democratic trifectas. Arizona, Michigan and Nevada previously advanced proposals that ultimately failed. In total, 61 electoral votes come from these states. 

Maine and Nebraska, where Democrats broke the GOP supermajority in the legislature on Tuesday, are the only states that split their electoral votes across candidates. Other states use a winner-take-all system where the candidate with the majority of the state’s popular vote gets all of the state’s electoral votes.