Did Trump Win Oregon?

My question is not about voter fraud. Republican talk of voter fraud since November 2020 is mostly folklore because it’s simultaneously possible for voter fraud to exist and for it to be impossible to scale to a level that leads to a material difference in outcome. Of course, we see little such talk four years later, what a coincidence.

I raise the question because, in the 2019 legislative session, Oregon passed and Governor Brown signed SB 870, joining the National Popular Vote Compact. These states agree to send the presidential electors of the party that wins the national popular vote, rather than just sending a delegation based on who won the state vote.

Trump won the popular vote last month. Does that mean that Oregon needs to certify the Oregon Republican Party’s slate of electors?

No. The bill has a provision saying it does not go into effect until enough states join the compact where their collective electoral vote count is a majority. That means at least 270 electoral college votes. Right now, it stands at a mere 209.

Indeed, the states that have enacted this law are merely the states that voted for Kamala Harris. It’s fun to think of what an Electoral College landslide it would have been had the drafters of this compact not considered adding that majority provision.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.