The Democratic party's recurring frustration with the Electoral College, highlighted by popular vote victories that don't result in winning the presidency, points to a fundamental, unresolved structural disadvantage for the party.

• Structural & Systemic Disadvantages

• "and in 2016 it was very important to Hillary Clinton the losing candidate that she had won three million more votes than Donald Trump and uh that uh certainly was something that factored um in the Democrats uh frustration with the Electoral College outcome but Steve I think the point you make a huge one which is we're not seeing that actual turnout we would um experience if the presidency was determined by a nationwide popular vote as opposed to an electoral college"

  12:11 Original video removed from YouTube

Democrats were unable to counter a broad, nationwide shift toward the Republican party, which resulted in losing both the popular vote and the Electoral College because the GOP's gains were widespread and not isolated to specific regions.

• Structural & Systemic Disadvantages

• "now in fact what ended up happening was that shift towards Republican voters this election occurred all over the place uh and you can look at those maps with the Red Arrows versus blue arrows and and see that uh in ways that meant Paris just couldn't eek out an electoral college Victory and so lost electoral college and Trump won that and the popular vote"

  19:58 Original video removed from YouTube

Democratic campaigns failed to maintain the record-high voter engagement of 2020, particularly in non-battleground states, leading to a drop in turnout across more than 40 states.

• Neglected Coalition & Demographic Collapse

• "it's just between 2020 and 2024 we saw a decline in turnout in over 40 States we saw a increase in turnout in the seven Battleground States stes so um it's clear that the Electoral College is really driving turnout in the Battleground states it is depressing turnout in the um non- Battleground States"

  25:19 Original video removed from YouTube

Democrats failed to secure their traditional base, losing significant support among minority voters and allowing Republicans to make major, and potentially lasting, inroads with Latino, Asian, and African-American communities.

• Neglected Coalition & Demographic Collapse

• "… made major gains with latino voters they made major gains with Asian voters they even made noticeable gains with African-American voters African-American voters have um historically voted as much as 90 to 95% for the Democrats Trump appears in many of the biggest cities the United States in um African-American precincts he won about 20% of the vote …"

  22:59 Original video removed from YouTube

The Democratic party, by adhering to a strategy dictated by the Electoral College, contributes to depressing voter turnout in non-competitive states by focusing all resources and attention on a handful of swing states.

• Structural & Systemic Disadvantages

• "I'm still really sort of fascinated by this possibility you raised Tony that we might have reached a point with respect to presidential election politics that voters in non- swing states are simply not particip ating as much now … of course it's not a fair comparison if voters in non- swing states are choosing not to participate then what does it matter what the popular vote is uh so we've got a little bit of a challenge there in terms of even trying to interpret what all this data can mean."

  10:41 Original video removed from YouTube

Democrats have operated under the potentially flawed assumption that abolishing the Electoral College would inherently benefit them, ignoring recent Republican success in the national popular vote and future demographic trends that could give Democrats an Electoral College advantage.

• Structural & Systemic Disadvantages

• "it seems like the issue has been framed as one in which Democrats would benefit from getting not by election law Scholars but sort of by the general public and the media that the Electoral College is hurting Democrats Democrats would be better to get rid of it and Republicans um are the beneficiaries of the Electoral College … but the Republicans won the nationwide popular vote in the US House in 2022 by about 3 million they're going to win the Nationwide vote for us house this year um last time I checked they're up by about five million Trump's going to win the Nationwide popular vote … The Republicans now are showing they can do pretty darn well in national public National popular votes"

  17:12 Original video removed from YouTube

• "if you look at demographic Trends it's possible that Democrats will end up being beneficiaries of the Electoral College when States like Montana which have seen a a significant influx of blue voters uh from California Idaho is starting to see it now in the Boise area it's conceivable with population shifts that a decade from now the Democrats might actually have an electoral college advantage over the Republicans so maybe the Republicans would be smart to Advocate reform right now uh before the Democrats have a strong incentive to oppose it"

  18:03 Original video removed from YouTube

The Democratic Party is being criticized for failing to maintain the high voter turnout levels of 2020, with some analysts suggesting 2024 was a 'reversion to the mean' after an anomalous 2020 election.

• Neglected Coalition & Demographic Collapse

• "there are some commentators who are uh you know sort of criticizing the Democratic party for having a lower turnout in the presidential election Nationwide this year than in 2020 but you know another way that I think some of the political scientists can look at this data is to see 2020 as an aberration large year turnout wise that it sort of um was higher than you would have anticipated based on just the normal growth in the electorate uh and that this year is more of a reversion to the mean year in a certain sense at least when you think about the total participation throughout the nation"

  4:53 Original video removed from YouTube

The way the Democratic campaign framed the choice for voters in the 2024 presidential election may have been ineffective, causing fewer voters to participate compared to previous cycles.

• Neglected Coalition & Demographic Collapse

• "and that this year if it's a reversion to the mean what does that say about you know the way in which the the choice was framed up again taking the presidential race as what's mainly driving turnout … but was it the case this year that at the presidential level the choice that voters saw at least that some voters saw um caused fewer voters to even think that they were going to participate"

  5:56 Original video removed from YouTube