I don’t know how likely this is but suppose neither candidate Trump or Harris hits the magic number of 270 electoral votes. That would throw it into the House of Representatives (the new post-election house of representatives). I believe each state regardless of the relative distribution of democrat to republican only gets one vote per state. It might turn out to be the case given this scenario that neither Harris nor Trump can get the majority necessary to win. Finally they decide to pick another candidate; my understanding is they can pick whoever they want (if Constitutionally eligible to serve) they’re not limited to the 2 major candidates. Dare I say it, President Ron Desantis? Basically Trump light probably 80-90% of the policies without any of the baggage.
VP would be similarly selected in the New Senate. All we would need would be some third party candidate somehow managing to win enough electoral votes that no one gets to 270.
As I read the Twelfth Amendment, the House is limited to voting among those who received at least one Electoral Vote. That *could* include DeSantis, but since he’s not appearing on ballots it would have to be from a faithless Elector. So it’s not impossible, but it’s pretty unlikely. For a dark horse, Jill Stein or even RFK Jr is more likely, but I don’t see them getting Electoral votes either, and I can’t see the House swinging to either of them if they did.
Nate Silver says the chance of it falling to the House is 0.4%. The states that are running neck-and-neck don’t combinatorily add up to a tie no matter which way each falls, so it takes some state that was thought to be a lock going vastly differently than expected, *without* that being part of a general polling error across more states.
Much more likely in the unlikely case of a tie is just that the House picks Trump.
If there’s no clear majority of Electors for President, then the House, votes as states, choose among the top three vote getters. Based on 2016, I would expect lots of faithless electors if that seems to be the case, so there would be a third candidate to choose from. A little collusion and confusion, and suddenly Gretchen Whitmer has 5 EVs and comes in third.
It would be really amusing to have California legislature direct their electors to vote for Gavin Newsome, so he could be the compromise.
The text of the 12th Amendment has some other little time bombs in it that I’m sure the Democrats are looking to exploit if necessary.
If after it goes to the House of Representatives and after many ballots no one reaches the clear majority needed from among the candidates to choose from then when Biden’s term ends the next president would obviously be the speaker of the house whoever that is. I thought under that unlikely scenario that the House of Representatives has the authority to pick whomever they want to be the speaker of the house even someone not in the House of Representatives
I don’t know how likely this is but suppose neither candidate Trump or Harris hits the magic number of 270 electoral votes. That would throw it into the House of Representatives (the new post-election house of representatives). I believe each state regardless of the relative distribution of democrat to republican only gets one vote per state. It might turn out to be the case given this scenario that neither Harris nor Trump can get the majority necessary to win. Finally they decide to pick another candidate; my understanding is they can pick whoever they want (if Constitutionally eligible to serve) they’re not limited to the 2 major candidates. Dare I say it, President Ron Desantis? Basically Trump light probably 80-90% of the policies without any of the baggage.
VP would be similarly selected in the New Senate. All we would need would be some third party candidate somehow managing to win enough electoral votes that no one gets to 270.
As I read the Twelfth Amendment, the House is limited to voting among those who received at least one Electoral Vote. That *could* include DeSantis, but since he’s not appearing on ballots it would have to be from a faithless Elector. So it’s not impossible, but it’s pretty unlikely. For a dark horse, Jill Stein or even RFK Jr is more likely, but I don’t see them getting Electoral votes either, and I can’t see the House swinging to either of them if they did.
Nate Silver says the chance of it falling to the House is 0.4%. The states that are running neck-and-neck don’t combinatorily add up to a tie no matter which way each falls, so it takes some state that was thought to be a lock going vastly differently than expected, *without* that being part of a general polling error across more states.
Much more likely in the unlikely case of a tie is just that the House picks Trump.
If there’s no clear majority of Electors for President, then the House, votes as states, choose among the top three vote getters. Based on 2016, I would expect lots of faithless electors if that seems to be the case, so there would be a third candidate to choose from. A little collusion and confusion, and suddenly Gretchen Whitmer has 5 EVs and comes in third.
It would be really amusing to have California legislature direct their electors to vote for Gavin Newsome, so he could be the compromise.
The text of the 12th Amendment has some other little time bombs in it that I’m sure the Democrats are looking to exploit if necessary.
If after it goes to the House of Representatives and after many ballots no one reaches the clear majority needed from among the candidates to choose from then when Biden’s term ends the next president would obviously be the speaker of the house whoever that is. I thought under that unlikely scenario that the House of Representatives has the authority to pick whomever they want to be the speaker of the house even someone not in the House of Representatives
Everyone just relax. It’ll be Harris for the win… I’m relying on physics to make this prediction.*
*The Law of Entropy.