Around six-in-ten U.S. adults (63%) say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency, while 35% favor keeping the current Electoral College system, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 27-July 4, 2022. There has been a modest increase in the share of Americans who favor changing the way presidents are elected: In January 2021, the last time the Center asked this question, 55% said the system should be changed, while 43% supported maintaining the existing system.

The current electoral system in the United States allows for the possibility that the winner of the popular vote may not be able to secure enough Electoral College votes to win the presidency. This was the case in both the 2000 and 2016 elections, which were won by George W. Bush and Donald Trump, respectively.

A bar chart showing that Democrats and Republicans differ over whether to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote
As in past years, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are far more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to support moving to a popular vote system (80% vs. 42%). The share of Democrats saying this is up 9 percentage points from January 2021, but about on par with views in 2020. While a majority of Republicans (56%) continue to say the current Electoral College system should be maintained, the share who now express support for moving to a popular vote system is the highest it’s been since the 2016 election: 42% say this today, up from 37% in 2021 and just 27% in the immediate wake of the 2016 election.