State legislative elections on Tuesday could help advance a Democratic plan to replace the Electoral College with a popular vote to pick the U.S. president.
That’s the warning from Trent England, founder of Save Our States, which is fighting to stop the popular vote movement.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has 18 states and the District of Columbia, which together hold 222 of the 270 electoral votes needed to change the presidential election process.
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“The risk right now is that, while they have basically run out of blue states, with these elections coming up, we could see a number of state legislative chambers flip to the left,” Mr. England told The Advocates.
“That could put Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin or Arizona, you know, maybe even Alaska, in the hands of progressives who then would try to push this plan through and add those states to the National Popular Vote Compact.”
Mr. England said supporters of the compact are focused on 2028 and on the 2030 census and reapportionment, when the number of electoral votes would be divvied up based on state populations.
The blue states will likely lose electoral votes and Democrats will be “behind the eight ball” without a strategy such as switching to a popular vote, said Mr. England.
National Popular Vote’s website describes the popular vote as applying the “one-person-one-vote principle to presidential elections and make every vote equal.”
Supporters of a popular vote for president include Democrats such as former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Peter Welch of Vermont.
Congress pushed to codify new refugee rules
The Federation for American Immigration Reform urged Congress to codify a recent interim final rule by the Department of Homeland Security that shortens the time for refugees to contest the termination of their legal status in the U.S.
According to DHS, the rule will allow U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to more rapidly terminate refugee status from 30 to 10 days and begin removal proceedings for those in the U.S. who lack legitimate status.
FAIR’s Gabriel Canaan said the rule is part of a broader effort by President Trump to reestablish integrity to the refugee admissions process.
The administration also suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and ordered enhanced vetting; launched Operation PARRIS in January 2026 in response to fraudulent refugee applications by Somalis in Minnesota and lowered the refugee admission ceiling from a fiscal year 2025 cap of 125,000 set by the Biden administration to 17,500 for fiscal year 2027.
“Under the Biden administration, refugee admissions grew to over 100,000 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, the highest level in 30 years. As the rule notes, lax vetting standards facilitated this growth and allowed for fraud and national security risks,” Mr. Canaan wrote.
“By streamlining the termination process, DHS is preventing ineligible aliens from continuing to claim refugee status, and its associated benefits, to which they are not entitled.”
Since 1986, the United States has ushered in more than 2.6 million refugees.
Census Bureau pressed to fine-tune calculations for allocating House seats
The America First Policy Institute is calling for the U.S. Census Bureau to finalize and strengthen its proposed residence rule for the 2030 Census.
The Census Bureau’s Sept. 10 rule proposal would count U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents at their usual residence when dividing seats in the U.S. House among the states, and other foreign nationals, including illegal aliens and those here on temporary visas, would not be counted for apportionment.
A new AFPI paper recommended that the final rule “expressly establish U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent residence as the qualifying legal status for apportionment and require verification against federal records rather than self-reporting alone.”
The conservative think tank also recommends adding a citizenship question to the 2030 Census.
In its analysis, AFPI said that the Constitution’s reference to persons “in each state” never meant to include every individual physically present on Census Day.
The report said that U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent residence under federal law is a well-defined, objective test for that connection.
“Representation in the U.S. House of Representatives should reflect the people who make each state their permanent, lawful home, not everyone who happens to be temporarily inside its borders on Census Day,” said Ken Blackwell, AFPI’s chair of Secure Elections.
“Since 1790, the census has counted lawful citizens where they usually live. The Bureau should apply that principle with a clear, objective test, and ensure that permanent residence can be verified with federal records.”
• The Advocates column is a weekly look at the political action players who drive the debate and shape policy outcomes in Washington. Send tips to theadvocates@washingtontimes.com. Click here to receive The Advocates in your inbox each week.
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