Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
Trump Never Intended To Be Just

Trump Never Intended To Be Just

‘Death By a Thousand Cuts’: Longer Renewal Times Are Making DACA Recipients Deportable

‘Death By a Thousand Cuts’: Longer Renewal Times Are Making DACA Recipients Deportable

The White House's Lawn.

Trump’s UFC Birthday Bash Dwarfs Flag Day’s Meaning and History

8 Keys to Working Across Differences

8 Keys to Working Across Differences

Coloradans vote to always give their electoral votes to the national winner — someday

Colorado voter

Voters gave their stamp of approval to the Colorado Legislature's decisions to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Marc Piscotty/Getty Images
Sara Swann
By Sara SwannNov 04, 2020
Sara Swann

As a staff writer, Sara covers a variety of democracy reform issues, including voting rights, money in politics, gerrymandering and civic education. Prior to joining The Fulcrum in May 2019, Sara reported on local government on Maryland's Eastern Shore for the USA Today network. She is a native West Virginian and a graduate of Syracuse University.

See More Writings by author

Colorado will remain committed to pledging its electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, just as soon as enough states decide the outcome do the same.

Last year the state enacted a law under which it joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which 14 other states and D.C. have embraced. Voters statewide narrowly decided Tuesday to affirm that decision. The referendum got 52 percent of the vote in complete but unofficial returns — a winning margin of about 135,000 votes out of 2.8 million cast.

This is a small, but not insignificant, win for reform advocates who say doing away with the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote will boost turnout and civic engagement because more Americans will feel their vote matters.

Being part of the pact means promising all the state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who gets the most votes nationwide — but only once states forming an Electoral College majority sign on. That magic number is 270. The other places, all reliably Democratic, have a combined 187 votes, so the deal is a long way from kicking in.

Colorado has 9 electoral votes but is likely to gain a 10th next year due to population growth. It has switched from red to purple to pretty blue in recent years. Joe Biden carried the state Tuesday by about 15 points, the third straight win for the Democratic nominee but the largest winning margin from the party in modern times, and the Democrats also took a Senate seat from the GOP.

Considering two of the most recent presidents — George W. Bush and Donald Trump — got elected despite finishing second in the popular vote, proponents say the compact assures whichever candidate is the most popular nationwide is the winner.

Transitioning out of the Electoral College system and into the popular vote system via the compact is completely legal, its advocates say, and doesn't require clearing the high hurdles of amending the Constitution. But GOP leaders nationwide fear this switch would disadvantage their party by turning all voting power over to blue cities.

Opponents of the pact in Colorado also argued that its adoption would assure presidential campaigns are conducted entirely in the metropolitan areas of the biggest states — meaning the vast rural reaches of the state would get ignored.


Latest news

Democracy’s Crisis in Plain Sight: A Republic in Authoritarian Drift

Democracy’s Crisis in Plain Sight: A Republic in Authoritarian Drift

​A group of youngsters help posting posters.
Democracy

Combating America’s Toxic Polarization: Lessons from Northern Ireland’s Troubles

Group of people waving small American flags at sunset. Concept for different topics like Election Results, Happy Veterans Day, Labor Day, Independence Day, President day
Democracy

A Lesson from the Last Time America Felt This Fragile

A Wisconsin school board votes to keep dual language program after pushback from families, students
Education

A Wisconsin school board votes to keep dual language program after pushback from families, students

Read More

Jasmine Clark Is Poised To Be the First Black Woman Ph.D. Scientist in Congress

Jasmine Clark first ran for office and flipped a Republican-held state legislative district in 2018.

Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Jasmine Clark Is Poised To Be the First Black Woman Ph.D. Scientist in Congress

LILBURN, GEORGIA — When state Rep. Jasmine Clark launched her campaign for Congress on a mission to enact generational change, she didn’t realize she could also make history.

Now, she’s poised to become the first Black woman Ph.D. scientist to serve in Congress. If she wins, she’ll be representing Georgia’s 13th Congressional District.

Keep ReadingShow less
Capitalism Without Competition Is Oligarchy
1 U.S.A dollar banknotes
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Capitalism Without Competition Is Oligarchy

For decades, Americans were told that globalization and free markets would deliver broadly shared prosperity. Instead, many saw stagnant wages, hollowed-out communities, and a growing concentration of wealth and power. The backlash was inevitable. But the real failure was not capitalism itself. It was the corruption of competition and the establishment’s generations-long indifference to the working class it left behind. That disregard didn’t just crater trust in institutions; it fueled populist backlash across the political spectrum, with anti-establishment anger now reshaping American politics.

Two truths define the American economic dilemma. First: competitive capitalism remains history’s most powerful engine for wealth creation, driving greater aggregate prosperity over the past two centuries than perhaps any other economic system. But averages are dangerous fictions; a man can easily drown in a lake that is, on average, two feet deep.

Keep ReadingShow less
Cathy Alderman: Housing Is Healthcare

Cathy Alderman

Cathy Alderman: Housing Is Healthcare

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) is working to address the lack of long-term affordable and supportive housing, which they identify as the only lasting solution to homelessness. Cathy Alderman, the organization’s Chief Communications and Public Policy Officer, emphasizes that the primary challenge is the "high cost not just of housing, but the cost of living" in Colorado, which creates a significant barrier for people trying to access stable housing or find rentals they can afford.

To address these challenges, the Coalition operates under the fundamental belief that "housing is healthcare". "We want to provide access to affordable housing and affordable health care so that people can be successful in the other areas of their life," Alderman said. As both a housing developer and a federally qualified health center, CCH manages approximately 2,000 units across 23 residential properties while providing integrated health services through clinics and street medicine teams.

Keep ReadingShow less
My Generation Can Spot the Deepfake. That’s Not Enough.
Smartphone with ai text in jeans pocket
Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

My Generation Can Spot the Deepfake. That’s Not Enough.

Thomas Massie, a seven-term Republican congressman from Kentucky, lost his primary on May 19. The race cost $32.6 million, making it the most expensive congressional primary in U.S. history. Among the weapons deployed against him: an AI-generated video showing him checking into a hotel room with Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, with their hands clasped. The narrator called it "worse than adultery." A disclaimer at the bottom of the screen, in small text, read: "This satirical ad was created with artificial intelligence."

I watched the ad. It looks ridiculous. The movements are slightly too smooth, the lighting is off, and the scenario is so cartoonish that I genuinely could not tell at first whether it was meant to be taken seriously. But I'm 17, and I've spent the last four years watching AI-generated content get better in real time. I know what the seams look like. Massie, in his post-loss interview on Meet the Press, was blunt about who the ad actually reached: "It was actually very effective on the boomers."

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026