What if Hillary Clinton had beaten Trump in 2016? Imagine how different the US – and the world – would look right now. Similarly: what if Al Gore had beaten George Bush Jr?

In fact, they did. In both these presidential elections, more Americans voted for the Democrats’ candidate. But thanks to the United States’ arcane electoral college system, the Republicans took the White House.

For decades, Democrats (and some Republicans) have been planning how, when the time is right, they can legislate for one person, one vote.

Now, for the first time, they may have a chance.

All eyes are on the midterm elections blue tsunami that has brought both houses of Congress under Democrat control. But a less noticed consequence of the country’s anti-Trump outrage has been state governments changing hands.

It means a seismic change to American politics may now actually be possible.

“The environment is right,” says former Republican political operative Patrick Rosenstiel, who has campaigned for years for a popular vote for president.

Why don’t Americans have an equal say?

Five US presidents, so far, have won office despite losing the national popular vote: twice in the 21st century and three times in the 19th century.

This is because, under the US constitution, the president is chosen by an “electoral college” of representatives sent from each state. Each state is allocated the same number of electors as it has Senators and Representatives. In practice, this gives smaller states disproportionately more electors, per voter, than bigger ones.

States decide the electors they send to pick the president. All but two states go by “winner takes all”: the presidential candidate who wins the vote in that state gets all the state’s electoral votes.

Framer Alexander Hamilton thought the electoral college would result in a better class of president than a popular vote.

“Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union,” he wrote.

Hindsight, of course, is 20/20.

What’s wrong with it?

Even aside from the intuitive unfairness of citizens being denied an equal vote, the electoral college system skews the nation’s politics.

Brady Horine, of the Leauge of Women Voters, says it can discourage voter turnout and engagement, particularly in states where one party consistently dominates the elections.

Just five or six states change hands in a typical presidential election. This prompts candidates and parties to focus their efforts and attention on “swing states” like North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia. In the six presidential elections of the 2000s, more than 90% of presidential campaign events were held in a dozen battleground states.

In 2024, the 14 least populous states hosted only three general election campaign events, despite having 49 electoral votes and 15.3 million people. 

At a fund-raising dinner in Florida in 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney noted: “All the money will be spent in 10 states, and this is one of them”.

The ignored states include almost all of the small states, rural states, western states, southern states, and northeastern states.

“In these ‘safe’ states, where the outcome is largely predetermined, voters who support the minority party may feel their votes are effectively wasted, leading to apathy and disenfranchisement,” Horine says. Studies have shown voter participation is 11% higher in battleground states than elsewhere.

Plus, it makes election results less sound.

“All-or-nothing payoffs at the state level under the current system make the national outcome extremely sensitive to fraud, foreign interference, voter suppression, and random events,” says Stanford University professor (and inventor of the lottery ‘scratch card’) John Koza.

Plus, candidates may only campaign on issues important to voters in the swing states.

“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state and see their president more,” said former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer in 2009.

So what’s the alternative?

Amending the US Constitution is difficult. It requires two-thirds support in both houses of Congress. Even if Congress passes an amendment, just 13 states could block it.

There is another way, though, which has become known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. It sprung up in the bitter aftermath of the 2000 election, in which the Supreme Court ruled on the result in Florida which then sent all its 30 electoral votes to Bush, who had lost the national popular vote by more than half a million votes, and only won Florida by 537.

Three law professors came up with a concept that, while technically retaining the electoral college, would make sure the winner of the popular vote always took the White House.

Under the Compact, state legislatures pass a law that, after a presidential election, that state appoints presidential electors committed to the ticket that won the most votes nationwide.

Once enough state legislatures pass that law, it wouldn’t matter if other states stuck with their own systems: it will work.

Rosenstiel says “it’s for anybody who believes that every voter in every state should be politically relevant, and I think it’s for any voter who thinks we can have a better politics in this country.”

It’s likely to get challenged in the Supreme Court, because the Constitution prohibits some compacts between states.

“This is America, so there will be a lawsuit,” Rosenstiel says. “We will win it.”

Is it going to happen?

Republican-controlled state legislatures don’t like the Compact, because they fear it will concentrate electoral power in Democrat heartlands. Historically, the partisan bias of the electoral college has swung between the parties, but has been heavily in Republicans’ favour since at least 2016.

Rosenstiel, himself a conservative, says Republicans who think the Compact will see elections decided by Democrats in California and New York ignore the actual maths (he points to Trump’s 2024 victory as proof). Nevertheless, he acknowledges that only a Democrat-led state legislature is likely to pass the law.

The system will work if states who pass the Compact into law control at least 270 electoral college votes between them. Before this week, 18 states plus Washington DC had joined the Compact, adding up to 222 electoral votes. Under the Compact, it doesn’t come into effect until they pass the 270 threshold.

But this week Democrats took control of state legislatures and governorships in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada, none of which have yet passed the Compact. That adds up to 61 electoral votes – with Alaska still in play.

Supporters of the Compact are overjoyed. They say the next president could well be decided by the popular vote.

Google Trends shows skyrocketing interest: a 450 per cent increase in searches for “national popular vote” this week, up 1,600 per cent since last year.

On Thursday the National Popular Vote Campaign was optimistic.

It tweeted, of the dream it has been pushing for decades, that it was: “Simple. Fair. Within reach.”