Walz says Electoral College ‘needs to go’ at California fundraiser

(CNN) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the Electoral College “needs to go,” while acknowledging “that’s not the world we live in,” during a campaign fundraiser in California on Tuesday, according to a pool report.

“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go. We need, we need national popular vote, but that’s not the world we live in. So we need to win Beaver County, Pennsylvania. We need to be able to go into York, Pennsylvania, win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We need to be in Reno, Nevada, and win,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee told supporters gathered at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s private residence in Sacramento, according to the pool report.

Walz’s call for eliminating the Electoral College is not an official campaign position, a Harris campaign official told CNN.

“Governor Walz believes that every vote matters in the Electoral College and he is honored to be traveling the country and battleground states working to earn support for the Harris-Walz ticket. He was commenting to a crowd of strong supporters about how the campaign is built to win 270 electoral votes. And, he was thanking them for their support that is helping fund those efforts,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement.

Vice President Kamala Harris has previously expressed openness to eliminating the Electoral College. During a 2019 interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Harris, who was running for president at the time, said she was “open to the discussion” of abolishing the Electoral College.

“There’s no question that the popular vote has been diminished in terms of making the final decision about who’s the president of the United States and we need to deal with that, so I’m open to the discussion,” she said in 2019.

Walz’s remarks came at his second fundraiser of the day on Tuesday. He also attended a fundraiser in the suburbs of Seattle on Tuesday morning and spoke at another fundraiser in Reno, Nevada, in the evening before holding a campaign rally there.

In five US presidential elections – including in 2016, when former President Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton – the eventual winner has lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College. The movement to abolish the Electoral College gained momentum in 2020 amid the United States’ reckoning with its history on race. Some historians argue the Electoral College’s origins are linked to White supremacy, but constitutional rules make changing or eliminating the system difficult.

CNN’s Faith Karimi contributed to this report.

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