'My position is the campaign's position,' Walz now says on eliminating the Electoral College
In an interview on Thursday with "Good Morning America" anchor Michael Strahan, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz aligned himself with the position of the Harris-Walz campaign on the Electoral College, which articulated its stance after Walz earlier in the week supported eliminating the system.
“I have spoken about it in the past, that [Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has] been very clear on this, and the campaign. And my position is the campaign's position,” Walz said.
At a fundraiser at California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s private residence in Sacramento on Tuesday, Walz said that the Electoral College system “needs to go,” in favor of a “national popular vote.”
Watch: ABC News' Michael Strahan’s TV interview with Gov. Tim Walz airs on “Good Morning America” on Friday, Oct. 11.
“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,” Walz said then.
But after ABC News inquired whether Harris shared Walz's position, a Harris campaign official replied, “Getting rid of the Electoral College is not a campaign position.”
In discussing the discrepancy with Strahan, Walz cited the fact that while he’s campaigned in many states over the past few months, “there's folks that feel every vote must count in every state,” not just battlegrounds.
“The point I'm trying to make is, is that there's folks that feel every vote must count in every state. And I think some folks feel that's not the case. Our campaign does that. And the point I'm saying is I'm in five states in two days,” Walz told Strahan on Thursday.
“We're out there making the case that -- the campaign's position is clear that that's not their position," he said. "Their position and my position is, is to make sure that everybody understands their vote, no matter what state they're in, matters.”
The Electoral College system determines who wins the presidency based on which candidate wins the majority of 538 electoral votes distributed among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. -- not the popular vote.
While electoral counts are allocated based on a state’s population, there have been instances of candidates winning the election while not winning the popular vote. Hillary Clinton in 2016, for example, won the popular vote but not the electoral vote.
Though the Harris campaign is saying it’s not their position, Harris herself, when she was running for president in 2019, said she was “open” to discussing doing away with the Electoral College.
“I think that it’s -- I’m open to the discussion,” Harris told Jimmy Kimmel in March 2019. “I mean 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.”
