The liberal group MoveOn.org is out with a stunning new poll of its members: 94 percent want the organization to launch an effort to get the electoral college to reject Donald Trump as president! This may surprise you, but this is not a representative sample. Not of the American public, and not even of Democrats or liberals.
Yes, the electoral college still technically has the means to block Trump's path to the Oval Office - at least temporarily - when it meets Monday. But not even Democrats are that strongly on board with the idea.
A new CBS News poll suggests only 37 percent of Americans approve of the idea that electoral college voters should be able to vote for someone other than the rightful winner of their state and votes; 57 percent disapprove of this idea. As you might expect, Democrats are more willing to cast aside protocol and have electors vote their consciences. (After all, doing so could theoretically still mean their candidate, Hillary Clinton, has a shot at becoming president.) But even they are only meh. While 51 percent say they approve of the idea of "faithless electors," 44 percent do not.
Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig and others are currently spearheading an effort to get Trump's electors to jump ship and prevent the electoral college from awarding him the presidency. It's very unlikely to happen. Lessig claims about 20 of the needed 37 ship-jumpers have expressed an interest in being "faithless electors," although he's offered no real details.
Only one is on record as saying he'll do it, and AP interviewed some 330 electors and found little indication of a looming revolt.
As Philip Bump wrote earlier this week, electors who are uncomfortable voting for Trump have in some cases resigned rather than follow through with voting against him. Another in Arizona recommitted to Trump after wavering. And here's how the current state of play looks, with just one faithless elector on record:
There is immense public pressure on many of these electors to go against the wishes of their state's voters - one Wisconsin elector told AP he's gotten more than 48,000 emails about it - but this movement's passion far outweighs its actual numbers or momentum. It's a desperation play, pure and simple, because its supporters are so worried about Trump.
But the fact remains that the electoral college, if it were to deprive Trump of the presidency, would risk massive public backlash and a potential constitutional crisis. It would also be doing something even many non-Trump voters aren't comfortable with.
And it would basically only be doing all of it to prove a point; the House, after all, would decide any election in which nobody gets 270 electoral votes. Republicans hold a huge majority there. Which means, barring some scandal way beyond anything we've seen so far, if there were a group of faithless electors significant enough to be decisive, that fact would result in . . . President Trump.
Previously:
• 12/05/16 How Pence, once damaged political goods, has a very good chance to chart his own political future
• 11/15/16 6 issues that could pit Donald Trump vs. the GOP Congress
• 10/05/16 Mike Pence's debate wasn't quite as great for Trump 2016 as it was for Pence 2020
• 09/12/16 Did Hillary Clinton just make her own '47 percent' gaffe?
• 09/01/16 A record number of Americans now dislike Hillary Clinton
• 08/15/16 If Donald Trump wins in 2016, remember this one poll number
• 07/19/16 4 brutal poll numbers greet Clinton at convention
• 07/19/16 The continuing political decline of Hillary Clinton
• 07/11/16 In bashing Donald Trump, some say Justice Ginsburg just crossed an important line
• 07/06/16 'Extremely careless,' and 7 other big quotes from the FBI's findings on Clinton's emails
• 06/20/16 How the Orlando attack showed the potential of an October Surprise
• 05/06/16 Donald Trump's day of many contradictions
• 03/10/16 How Donald Trump can still be stopped, according to the folks in charge of doing it
• 03/07/16 Winners and losers from 'Super Saturday'
• 03/03/16 Colbert nails it --- Christie looked like 'the best man at a wedding he didn't believe in'
• 02/10/16 Don't assume Hillary will start winning again after New Hampshire
• 02/08/16 Winners and losers from the New Hampshire Republican debate