Buttigieg says he 'totally' wants to scrap the Electoral College 'as a matter of basic fundamental fairness'

Pete Buttigieg admitting he wants to do away with the Electoral College.

In an interview with Politico's Jonathan Martin, Pete Buttigieg suggested Democrats should take "big swings" and attempt to change parts of the American government that require constitutional amendments, becoming the latest 2028 Democrat hopeful to take a swipe at the Electoral College.

Martin at one point asked Buttigieg, would "you scrap the Electoral College?"

"Totally, yeah of course," was the enthusiastic reply from Buttigieg. "I mean this is one where, just as a matter of basic fundamental fairness, I don't see how you get to the idea that any one voter should have a greater vote than another voter," The former transportation secretary and mayor of South Bend went on to say.

"Is it realistic to get those kinds of big-ticket reforms done even in a five-year window, even in a 10-year window?" Martin asked. "Those are significant overhauls that would take a lot of work and effort to get done," he said, referring to the fact that abolishing the Electoral College would require an act of Congress and an amendment to the Constitution. Martin didn't ask why Buttigieg seems bent on upending governmental architecture installed by the Founding Fathers. 

Buttigieg likened scrapping the Electoral College to a component of a larger platform of policy changes, saying Democrats should embark on something like the Republicans' "Project 2025."

"If we want to do a Project 2050 and start today, we'd already be a couple of decades behind. So I think we should be thinking about that. But I'll also say for every big swing there is a base hit. So for the big swing of, you know, Electoral College reform in the constitution there's a base hit which is passing the compact state by state," Buttigieg said, acknowledging that abolishing the Electoral College would be a major long-shot. 

Buttigieg is the latest mainstream Democrat eyeing a 2028 White House run to jump on the "abolish the Electoral College" bandwagon. His remarks came a few days after Kamala Harris told supporters, "I know this is going to be controversial coming from me in particular -- we need to revisit the Electoral College," last week. Harris also endorsed packing the Supreme Court by expanding it to 13 justices, and adding Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as states. The Electoral College was established by the nation's Founding Fathers in the Constitution in the late 1700s.

The remarks by Buttigieg and Harris are part of a larger trend in the Democrat party in which candidates and political operatives are calling for foundational changes to American government. Buttigieg and Harris are widely seen as more moderate Democrats in 2026, and their calls for foundational change pale in comparison to some of the other extremists in the party, who have demanded the senate and presidency be abolished, want the Supreme Court to be replaced and the Pentagon defunded, among other things. But they are calls for foundational change nonetheless, an apparent strategy for Democrats of all stripes heading toward 2028.

Others, like the candidate leading Democrats for the Wisconsin governor nominee, want the U.S. to cancel Thanksgiving, which dates to 1621, was designated as a national day of thanks in 1789 by George Washington, and was declared a federal holiday in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. 

Watch a clip of Buttigieg's Electoral College remarks below and see the full interview with Buttigieg here.