While many have focused on whether President Trump will protest the November election results, another possibility is that Democrats could. After all, the Democrats have now lost two Presidential elections in recent memory despite winning the popular vote (2000 and 2016). This has revealed a potential flaw in the US election system where the margin of victory in the popular vote does not match the margin of victory in the electoral colleges (Chart 1). In fact, there have been some large deviations between the two historically – for example, Reagan won the 1980 election with a 10% margin in the popular vote but won the electoral college by a margin of 90%.
While the gap was very large, at least Reagan won both vote counts. The trouble today is that as the popular vote margins have become narrower, and this mismatch in mapping between popular votes and electoral college votes can leading to opposing results, as seen in 2016. This raises the spectre of the Democrats attempting to overhaul the election system even if they win to avoid a repeat of such outcomes.
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While many have focused on whether President Trump will protest the November election results, another possibility is that Democrats could. After all, the Democrats have now lost two Presidential elections in recent memory despite winning the popular vote (2000 and 2016). This has revealed a potential flaw in the US election system where the margin of victory in the popular vote does not match the margin of victory in the electoral colleges (Chart 1). In fact, there have been some large deviations between the two historically – for example, Reagan won the 1980 election with a 10% margin in the popular vote but won the electoral college by a margin of 90%.
While the gap was very large, at least Reagan won both vote counts. The trouble today is that as the popular vote margins have become narrower, and this mismatch in mapping between popular votes and electoral college votes can leading to opposing results, as seen in 2016. This raises the spectre of the Democrats attempting to overhaul the election system even if they win to avoid a repeat of such outcomes.
Currently, California, Florida and Texas get less electoral college votes than their population shares would suggest (Chart 2). Increasing their electoral college votes would be an obvious answer, but this would require reforming the number of Senators allocated to each state (the electoral college = number of representatives plus senators). Currently each state is allocated two senators whatever their population size. This would potentially require a constitutional change. Other reforms could include assigning senators to states that currently don’t have them (e.g. DC and Puerto Rico), or some kind of interstate pact to match the electoral college votes to the popular vote.
A Biden win could therefore embolden factions within the Democratic party to agitate for reform. However, the more immediate target would be the Supreme Court. With the likely appointment of conservative judge Amy Coney Barret – the Court will now comprise 6 conservative judges and 3 liberal judges. This could set the stage for cases such as Roe v Wade, which protects women’s right to abortion, being overturned. Democrats may therefore look to expand the court size or introduce term limits. Again, this could enter difficult constitutional waters, but that may not deter attempts to reform.
The punchline then is that while many view Trump as potentially protesting the election system, it may turn out to be the Democrats that could be more radical.
Bilal Hafeez is the CEO and Editor of Macro Hive. He spent over twenty years doing research at big banks – JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and Nomura, where he had various “Global Head” roles and did FX, rates and cross-markets research.
(The commentary contained in the above article does not constitute an offer or a solicitation, or a recommendation to implement or liquidate an investment or to carry out any other transaction. It should not be used as a basis for any investment decision or other decision. Any investment decision should be based on appropriate professional advice specific to your needs.)