House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during a press conference on Friday that the 2020 election wasn’t actually bad for Democrats because the party received more total votes across the country than either President Donald Trump or the Republican Party.
It is the latest attempt not only to downplay Democrat election losses earlier this month but also to dismiss the U.S. election system.
Pelosi stood next to a large poster board while saying, “Did you know that House Democrats got nearly 2 million more votes than Donald Trump?”
“Everybody turned out and it was a great vict—a mandate,” she continued. “The most important thing we did two years ago was win the House. We won 40 seats, 31 of them in Trump districts in the most gerrymandered, voter suppressed political arena you could make.”
The fact that they won suggests the opposite of what she claimed.
“I said then that it was going to be harder next time because he’ll be on the ballot, and it was,” she added.
Because former President George W. Bush and President Donald Trump won their respective elections in 2000 and 2016 through the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote, Democrats have called for abolishing the Electoral College. Doing so would erase the voices of millions of Americans and hand over national election decisions to populous states like California, New York, and Texas. It is because California and New York are so populous and Democrat-controlled that Democrats win the popular vote.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, the national popular vote was never an American principle:
The Electoral College results from a popular vote — in each state and the District of Columbia. It is 51 separate popular votes, although two states award proportional electoral votes.
Democrats don’t like the way elections are currently done because their party lost in 2016 and 2000 due to electoral votes when they won the popular vote. So, naturally, because the system didn’t work for them, they want to abolish it.
Republicans run using the Electoral College. Then-candidate Donald Trump visited states he thought he could win to increase his electoral votes. Hillary Clinton visited some states she knew she wouldn’t win in order to increase her vote totals so she would not only be the first female president, but also the president with the most votes ever.
This strategy, of course, did not work out in her favor. She ignored states she assumed would give her their electoral votes (like Wisconsin), assuming the Electoral College was a lock for her. She was wrong.
The biggest problem Democrats face with wanting elections ruled by the national popular vote is that Republicans may change their election strategies under such a system and Democrats wouldn’t get the permanent majority they think they would.
Pelosi’s vote total claim is a desperate attempt to make the November election not look so bad for Democrats. As The Daily Wire previously reported, Congressional Republicans won battleground house seats and have so far retained the Senate. In fact, of the 27 House races listed as “toss-ups,” Republicans won all 27. If current leads hold, the breakdown of the House will be 222 Democrats and 213 Republicans, meaning Pelosi can only lose four votes on any bill.
The two Senate races still outstanding are in Georgia, which both headed to a runoff. Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) came within 0.3 percentage points of avoiding a runoff, while Republicans split the ticket for the other runoff. Georgia has previously proven that millions of outside dollars won’t sway the electorate.