Trump won Colorado — if pro-popular-vote guv, pols had their way | CALDARA | Denver-gazette

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Yet again the voters of Colorado pummeled Donald Trump at the ballot box. He lost here by an audacious 12%.

I have a question for the majority of Coloradans who didn’t want him as president: How do you feel about your 10 Colorado Electoral College votes going to President-elect Trump instead of Vice President Kamala Harris?

Voters of our hardcore blue state despise Trump and came out in very large numbers to voice their hatred of the man. And yet, our 10 electoral votes from Colorado will go to … Trump.

So, you with Trump Derangement Syndrome, is this what you wanted?

California might hate him even more than us, but their 54 electoral votes will also be going to elect Trump.

So will the Trump-phobic states of New York (28 electoral votes), Illinois (19), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Maine (4), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Connecticut (7), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), Oregon (8), Washington (12) and the District of Columbia (3).

OK. Relax never-Trumpers, what I’ve described above is a Twilight Zone version of America. But be very certain, it is the version of America our Legislature and Gov. Jared Polis have signed us up for.

They committed Colorado to the multistate National Popular Vote Compact, which will force our presidential electors to vote not as Coloradans demand, but as voters in other states dictate. Under NPV, Colorado has little power.

Beyond the Electoral College, Trump also is winning, as of writing this, the “national popular vote” by about 5 million votes.

Those who supported the idea of the national popular vote must now imagine their self-made dystopian future where their presidential electors are forced to vote for the maniacal, misogynistic, fascist, democracy-destroying, tyrant-loving Trump.

It’s worth keeping in mind there is no such thing as the “national popular vote.” There is no federal Secretary or Clerk who officially controls, tallies and audits the state elections.

We have an itch to know the popular vote in the same way we like to know how many yards Broncos quarterback Bo Nix threw for in the last game, even though it has squat-all to do with which team won the game. It’s academic at best, but mostly it’s a curiosity.

This National Popular Vote Compact will to go into effect when enough states have signed on that collectively they have 270 electoral votes.

Right now, they have 18 states with 209 votes and are working to dupe other states to join in.

The backers of NPV are almost exclusively urban progressives. Makes sense — it gives power mostly to high-density cities which, I’m sure purely coincidentally, are very progressive.

NPV activists are part of the win-at-all-costs coalition and have conveniently forgotten their high school civics lesson that we are not a country run by a federal government. Rather, we are 50 sovereign states who send representatives to the federal government to work for us.

The only state in the 18-state compact that didn’t vote for Harris was Wisconsin. Conclusion — basically only progressive states, like blue Colorado, like the NPV idea.

Popular vote supporters might not have realized, till now, their invention could be a godsend for dangerous populists. After this presidential election and the accompanying panic — tears, trips to therapists and life coaches, belly-button staring contests and scapegoating — Trump’s popular vote victory is the turd in their national-popular-vote punch bowl.

NPV fanatics, who almost uniformly hate Trump, might begin to realize their scheme would empower the very monsters they despise.

If their compact was in effect this year, the Trump-loathing states that have signed on would be forced to give their collective 197 electoral votes to Trump. Kamala would be left with only 30 sad, lonely votes. Sweet poetry.

Remember, the people of Colorado never voted for the national popular vote. Our progressive Legislature passed it. Our progressive governor signed it into law. A scattered and underfunded citizens referendum did fail to repeal it. But voters were never asked to pass it in the first place.

I wonder if an election to put Colorado in the NPV Compact were held today if most Coloradans would vote to have their electoral votes go to Trump. They wouldn’t.

Maybe our progressive Colorado Legislature should think about pulling our very blue state out of the now very-red National Popular Vote Compact.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts “The Devil’s Advocate with Jon Caldara” on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.

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