Elizabeth Warren Wants to Get Rid of the Electoral College
She called for its abolition at a town hall on CNN Monday.
Photo via AP/Carlos Giusti)
There’s a new college uproar in town. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren declared she wants to get rid of the electoral college system in a CNN town hall Monday night. She also pushed for reparations for descendants of slaves and reaffirmed her commitment to breaking up big tech.
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren calls for abolishing the Electoral College and moving to a national popular vote: “Every vote matters” #WarrenTownHall https://t.co/pPFMVywETf pic.twitter.com/yy0J0HgAjc
— CNN (@CNN) March 19, 2019
The town hall was hosted and broadcast by CNN at Jackson State University, a historically black university in Jackson, Mississippi. Warren lamented the existence of the electoral college because it de-emphasizes states like Mississippi and her own Massachusetts because they aren’t swing states for the electoral votes like Ohio or Pennsylvania.
“My view is that every vote matters. And the way we can make that happen is we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the electoral college,” Warren said to an enthusiastic audience.
Elizabeth Warren calls for the abolition of the electoral college. The crowd loves it. This should not be complicated for Democrats. We can’t continue to use an archaic 18th century relic to power a modern 21st century democracy. #WarrenTownHall
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) March 19, 2019
The electoral college system, established in 1787, has been called into question by the Democratic party before—most recently in 2016, when Hillary Clinton took the popular vote by almost three million ballots but still lost the election.
Warren, whose 2020 platform has been built on a series of progressive policy proposals, broke away from the Democratic tradition with her visit to the South. As she said when calling for a more fair voting system, Mississippi and other Southern states tend to be written off as one big red clump before elections even begin. She also cited voter suppression practices that lower the national voter turnout.
“Come a general election, presidential candidates don’t come to places like Mississippi, they also don’t come to places like California or Massachusetts, because we’re not the battleground states,” she said.
Huge (biggest of the night so far?) applause line when Warren says she supports getting rid of the electoral college and favors national popular vote. Have not heard her say this before #WarrenTownHall
— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) March 19, 2019
Warren also used the town hall as a chance to remind voters of her top priorities. She has taken a page out of 2016 contender Bernie Sanders’ book by refusing to accept donations from Super PACs and ultra-wealthy donors, instead opting to rely on smaller donations from voters.
Her “Ultra-Millionaire Tax,” a combination of words which should work just fine for putting off big corporate donors, also echoes Sanders’ famous “eat the rich” rhetoric.
Warren also restated her support for the Green New Deal, proposed in part by fellow Massachusetts senator Ed Markey.
