Last week, Democratic state Sen. Adam Ebbin withdrew a bill to add Virginia's 13 Electoral College votes to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact after Senate Democrats realized they did not have enough votes to pass the bill either in committee or on the full floor. Senate Democrats hold a narrow 21-19 majority over Republicans, who uniformly oppose the measure.
Democrats won full control of Virginia state government in 2019, but even though they passed a bill to join the compact in the state House last year, the Senate has now failed to advance the bill for the second year running. The situation appears unlikely to change unless supporters defeat some of the bill's opponents in 2023, when terms for senators are next up.
Had Virginia joined the compact, it would have exceeded the 200-vote threshold for the first time and attained 209 of the 270 electoral votes needed to take effect, but instead the compact only has 196 electoral votes as shown on the cartogram at the top of this post (see here for a larger version). Virginia is the third state controlled by Democrats that has failed to pass a bill joining the compact thanks to internal opposition, following a veto by Nevada's governor and Maine legislators narrowly rejecting their own bill in 2019.
Aside from these three states, there are no states left that have a unified Democratic state government and have not yet joined the compact. Supporters may therefore have to wait until after future elections bring new lawmakers to power before they stand a chance at successfully adding any new members to the compact.
Before last November, it appeared possible for the compact to take effect by 2024 if Democrats did well enough in the 2020 and 2022 elections. However, Republican victories in key legislative chambers last year dashed those hopes, while the coming midterms are likely to be unkind to Democrats, since the party that controls the presidency typically suffers in midterm elections and Republicans are poised to dominate redistricting thanks to their recent wins.
It could therefore be many years before the compact could realistically win enough support to take effect barring an unexpected reversal of opposition by Republicans. That, however, appears exceedingly unlikely as long as Republicans continue to believe that the Electoral College gives them a partisan advantage.
