DENVER–Had the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPV) been in effect for the November, 2024 election, Colorado’s 10 electoral votes would have gone to Donald Trump as winner of the popular vote nationwide, rather than to Kamala Harrris, who solidly won Colorado by 12 percentage points. Despite this, majority Democrats on Monday unanimously killed a Republican bill to pull Colorado out the as yet incomplete NPV compact.
House Bill 25-1102, sponsored by the GOP trio of Rep. Ken DeGraaf (Colorado Springs), Rep. Carlos Barron (Ft. Lupton) and Rep. Jarvis Caldwell (El Paso County) sought to repeal the 2019 law joining Colorado onto the NPV effort. That law then narrowly survived a repeal attempt at the ballot in 2020, cementing Colorado as a member of the compact.
Should states representing at least 270 electoral votes (a majority) join the compact, the winner of the combined popular vote from the 50 state presidential elections (plus the District of Columbia) automatically gets the electoral votes from the compact states, ensuring the winner of the popular vote nationwide also wins enough electoral votes to become president.
Including Colorado, the NPV compact currently includes 17 states as well as the District of Columbia, and remains 61 electoral votes shy of the 270 needed, according to the website for the effort.
The Democrat-dominated House State, Civic, Military & Veterans Affairs Committee on Monday rejected the effort, voting 8-2 (with one GOP member excused) to indefinitely postpone the bill.
The Colorado legislature’s glossary of terms defines a motion to postpone indefinitely as having the “same effect as moving to kill a bill.”