The race for president in 2024 is heating up but there's another campaign happening that could drastically change the way candidates run their campaigns.
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00:00 >> All right, the race for president in 2024 is heating up, but there's another campaign
00:05 happening that could drastically change the way candidates run their campaigns.
00:09 Congressional correspondent Stephanie Liebergen explains.
00:11 >> Every four years, the presidential election comes down to a handful of critical swing states,
00:18 thanks to the Electoral College. But for nearly two decades, an effort has been slowly gaining
00:23 steam that would guarantee the candidate who wins the national popular vote ends up in the White
00:28 House. >> I can't think of a single redeeming
00:30 quality to the current system. >> For more than 15 years, Pat Rosensteil
00:34 has been trying to change the way we elect our president.
00:37 >> Every voter in every state should be politically relevant in every presidential election.
00:42 And national popular vote is the only way to do that because it guarantees the presidency
00:47 to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states.
00:50 >> He's talking about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and here's how it would work.
00:56 The Constitution gives states the power to decide how to award their electoral votes.
01:00 Under this proposal, states in the compact agree to give their electoral votes to whoever wins
01:05 the national popular vote, regardless of how that state's residents vote.
01:09 For the compact to take effect, states representing at least 270 electoral votes,
01:14 the minimum it needed to win the presidency, have to sign on.
01:17 >> When states with 65 more electoral votes say they wanna have a national popular vote for
01:22 president, we're gonna have one. And it doesn't matter where your viewers are hearing this,
01:27 we're gonna make them relevant in presidential elections.
01:30 >> Maryland was the first state to join in 2007. Fast forward to 2023, when Minnesota
01:36 became the 17th jurisdiction to join, pushing the total electoral vote count to 205.
01:42 In Michigan, state representative Kerri Ryengans is working to make her state number 18.
01:47 >> I had to win the most votes in my district to be elected. I think the president should
01:50 just have to do the same thing. >> She says her bill has wide bipartisan
01:54 support. The issue has been introduced many times before in Michigan, but she thinks the momentum
02:00 this time around could get it across the finish line.
02:02 >> It's not just party control, it's really the groundswell that we've been having for democracy.
02:08 Labor groups and environmental groups have been adding democratic focus of democracy, voting,
02:16 voting rights, voting accessibility as part of their platforms for the work that they're doing.
02:21 >> Five times in the history of the US, the winner of the Electoral College
02:26 lost the popular vote. Despite that, opponents of the interstate compact say there's no need
02:31 to fix something that isn't broken. They argue the current system preserves the
02:35 influence of smaller states. >> Candidates would be able to ignore
02:39 largely more rural, less populated states. They would concentrate on the big cities
02:46 that also have the densest media market. So this would actually be worse for states like Montana.
02:53 >> But many states are already overlooked. In the final weeks before the 2020 election,
02:58 96% of presidential campaign events were held in just 12 states. And popular vote advocates say
03:04 their proposal will allow voters in Wisconsin or Florida to hold the same value as voters in
03:10 Wyoming or Oklahoma. Ryan Ganz believes that principle of one person, one vote is of top
03:15 importance. >> I'm not trying to have us get rid of the
03:18 Electoral College right now. That's not on my radar at the moment for this. What we're trying
03:23 to do is use the power of the Electoral College and make sure it's aligned with the national will
03:28 of the people. >> When the compact reaches 270 votes,
03:32 Rosenstiel expects legal challenges, like the argument that it needs congressional approval.
03:38 But he is confident that the national popular vote is legal and constitutional. And he believes it
03:44 will be in effect for the presidential election in 2028. Stephanie Liebergen, Scripps News, Washington.