Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

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

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.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

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.

Read More

Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin
- YouTube

Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin

The Fulcrum presents The Path Forward: Defining the Democracy Reform Movement. Scott Warren's interview series engages diverse thought leaders to elevate the conversation about building a thriving and healthy democratic republic that fulfills its potential as a national social and political game-changer. This initiative is the start of focused collaborations and dialogue led by The Bridge Alliance and The Fulcrum teams to help the movement find a path forward.

Karissa Raskin is the new CEO of the Listen First Project, a coalition of over 500 nationwide organizations dedicated to bridging differences. The coalition aims to increase social cohesion across American society and serves as a way for bridging organizations to compare notes, share resources, and collaborate broadly. Karissa, who is based in Jacksonville, served as the Director of Coalition Engagement for a number of years before assuming the CEO role this February.

Keep ReadingShow less
Business professional watching stocks go down.
Getty Images, Bartolome Ozonas

The White House Is Booming, the Boardroom Is Panicking

The Confidence Collapse

Consumer confidence is plummeting—and that was before the latest Wall Street selloffs.

Keep ReadingShow less
Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship
Getty Images, Mykyta Ivanov

Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship

The current approaches to proactively counteracting authoritarianism and censorship fall into two main categories, which we call “fighting” and “Constitution-defending.” While Constitution-defending in particular has some value, this article advocates for a third major method: draining interest in authoritarianism and censorship.

“Draining” refers to sapping interest in these extreme possibilities of authoritarianism and censorship. In practical terms, it comes from reducing an overblown sense of threat of fellow Americans across the political spectrum. When there is less to fear about each other, there is less desire for authoritarianism or censorship.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less