FROM WASHINGTON STRAIGHT

In late November 1984, political experts from the Reagan-Bush and Mondale-Ferraro teams met for a collegial post-mortem at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government. High on the agenda was each campaign’s coalition strategy, i.e., the way each of them set about attracting the voters it thought its candidate needed in order to win. To the astonishment of the Reagan folk, the Mondale-Ferraro forces revealed they had built their strategy on demographic groups, not states. Whereas, from the fall of 1983 through November 5, 1984, Reagan’s campaign had aimed, first and foremost, at winning 270 of the 538 Electoral College votes. Demographics were merely a means to this end.

Remember, each state has the same number of electors in the College as it has senators plus representatives in Congress—a mixture of representation by population and representation by geographical entity. But, while most states’ congressional delegations are divided between Republicans and Democrats, the Electoral College vote is winner-take-all within each state. Thus by losing many states overwhelmingly while winning others narrowly, a candidate could win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote, thereby triggering a constitutional crisis.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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In late November 1984, political experts from the Reagan-Bush and Mondale-Ferraro teams met for a collegial post-mortem at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government. High on the agenda was each campaign’s coalition strategy, i.e., the way each of them set about attracting the voters it thought its candidate needed in order to win. To the astonishment of the Reagan folk, the Mondale-Ferraro forces revealed they had built their strategy on demographic groups, not states. Whereas, from the fall of 1983 through November 5, 1984, Reagan’s campaign had aimed, first and foremost, at winning 270 of the 538 Electoral College votes. Demographics were merely a means to this end.

Remember, each state has the same number of electors in the College as it has senators plus representatives in Congress—a mixture of representation by population and representation by geographical entity. But, while most states’ congressional delegations are divided between Republicans and Democrats, the Electoral College vote is winner-take-all within each state. Thus by losing many states overwhelmingly while winning others narrowly, a candidate could win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote, thereby triggering a constitutional crisis.