Sen. Elizabeth Warren Calls to Abolish the Electoral College

Calls to abolish the Electoral College are gaining more traction among the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren becoming the latest high-profile backer of the electoral reform.

During a CNN town hall in Jackson, Miss., on Monday night, the Massachusetts Democrat threw her support behind eliminating the Electoral College when discussing how to expand voting rights.

"Come a general election, presidential candidates don't come to places like Mississippi, they also don't come to places like California or Massachusetts, because we're not the battleground states," Warren said at the town hall.

"My view is that every vote matters, and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College," she said to a standing ovation.

The debate over the Electoral College has gained prominence in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, in which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, despite the former secretary of state winning the popular vote by nearly three million votes.

There's a state-level effort burgeoning that seeks to dilute the power of the Electoral College. Colorado is the latest state to join a compact with 11 other states and the District of Columbia in which they pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

Warren isn't the only 2020 presidential contender to back the sweeping electoral reform. South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg was the first presidential candidate to throw his support behind ending the Electoral College.

"We've got to repair our democracy. The Electoral College needs to go, because it's made our society less and less democratic," Buttigieg said in a January interview with "CBS This Morning."

When asked on Tuesday about possible support for ending the Electoral College, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke was noncommittal but appeared interested in the prospect of reform.

"I think there's a lot of wisdom in that," O'Rourke told an MSNBC reporter, adding that the Electoral College "puts some states out of play altogether."