I'm amazed people actually get paid to write crap like this.
The whole article is predicated on the ludicrous idea that a tie is a remotely plausible outcome. It isn't. The author cites 2 reasons to believe this: One is the idea that Nebraska will switch to WTA, and the other is that Kennedy picking off Biden supporters will make him lose states like NV, MI, and NH to get the 269-269 result.
Nebraska isn't switching to a winner take all system, which renders the whole article moot. Even if they did (which they aren't), Maine would respond by doing the same thing. There would be no overall change.
According to most polls, Kennedy is taking evenly from the two candidates, or is taking more from Trump. This could reverse by the election, but the main problem is that you don't need Kennedy at all to lose Biden the election. He's losing in the 2-way polls right now, if only narrowly. Also, in what universe does a NH loss translate to a tied EC? If Biden loses NH he's looking at like 230 EV tops.
Then he actually starts talking about 1824. He claims that in the 1816 election, "the vast majority of states" chose electors in the legislature. As far as I can tell this is just incorrect. 10-9 the states chose electors through some form of popular vote. The states doing so had a 124-97 EV majority. As for the rest of the 1824/1828 talk, it seems accurate enough, but I'm not an expert. One thing I will say is that he seems to talk a lot about how Jacksonian democracy was the first time that candidates really campaigned to win over the common man, but then seemingly undercuts his own point by saying the purpose of campaigning in the era was just to juice turnout among each side's partisans.
But the thing that really gets me is the conclusion. The whole point of talking about 1824 is to draw comparisons to 2024. "What if Trump, like Adams before him, manages to win in a tied House?" is the main question of the article, and the author never even discusses it! The entire discussion of that topic is in two sentences at the end of the article, which I can quote in full without breaking the rules:
As in 1824, if the election is thrown to the House, 2024 could be a watershed year for American democracy. Long-stalled political reforms — from introducing Supreme Court term-limits to abolishing the Electoral College — could finally sail through atop a wave of populist democratic outrage.
In 1824, Adams won the battle but lost the war. In 2024, Trump could find himself in a similar situation.
We read about this scenario which won't happen because the author wants us to consider the possibilities: A tied 2024 election could be like the transformative tied 1824 election. But then he never actually bothers to explain what this supposed transformation would be! The only things he bothers to mention are Abolishing the Electoral College and Supreme Court term limits. Both of those things would require constitutional amendments to enact, and have absolutely 0 chance of happening as a result of a tied election.
Democrats lost an election in 2016 after winning the popular vote, and it didn't result in some massive groundswell of support that gave them the LBJ-esque majorities needed to amend the constitution. It resulted in greater "polarization", and a narrow victory in 2020. Losing the presidency while winning the popular vote is nothing unusual for the Democrats in the modern party system, so I really don't see why the author thinks it happening in 2024 would cause this transformational shift. By far the more likely result of this silly scenario would be the continued worsening of politics and partisan division in the country.
1/10, I want a refund for the time I wasted reading this free article.
