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Trump pressures Nebraska legislature to change voting rules

Vaseline September 21, 2024

Former President Donald Trump is making new efforts to secure one of Nebraska’s Electoral College votes, which could determine who wins the White House in November.

According to the Nebraska Examiner and other media, the Republican candidate is speaking to Nebraska state lawmakers in a second attempt to push a bill through the unicameral legislature that would change the state’s electoral vote allocation system and deny Vice President Kamala Harris the chance to win one of the state’s five votes.

If successful, this move could change the electoral map and force Harris to win another state to win the presidential election.

A purple dot in a sea of red

Nebraska and Maine are the only states that do not use the winner-takes-all system for electoral votes. In Nebraska, two of the five electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives the most votes in the state. The other three go to the winners of each of the state’s three congressional districts.

Although Nebraska is a heavily Republican state, the 2nd Congressional District, which surrounds Omaha, has sometimes been swung in favor of Democrats in recent presidential elections, including by former President Barack Obama in 2008 and President Joe Biden in 2020.

That one electoral vote could be Harris’ key to getting the 270 she needs to win: If she wins the “blue wall” battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, she could win an Electoral College majority with Nebraska’s one vote. She wouldn’t have to win any of the Sun Belt swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

Recent polls have Harris tied or ahead in the “blue wall” states but behind in some battleground states in the Sun Belt.

Some Republicans in Nebraska have tried to change the system of apportioning electoral votes by district since it was passed by the Legislature in 1991. However, the bills have been vetoed by a Democratic governor or killed in committee.

Nebraska’s unique system drew national attention in April when conservatives from across the country, including Trump, urged Republican Gov. Jim Pillen to push a bill through the Legislature to restore the state’s winner-takes-all system. Though Republicans are in the majority and Pillen supported them, the effort fell short of the 33 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, but Pillen and other Republicans in the state are toying with the idea of calling a special session to push it through if they can find the votes.

“I and other conservatives worked hard to assess the Legislature’s support for WTA (winner-take-all) during a special session prior to the election,” Pillen said in a statement last week.

“At this point, I have not received the concrete and public indication that 33 senators would vote for WTA,” Pillen said. “If that changes, I will enthusiastically call a special session.”

In an effort to convince a handful of Republican senators to support the winner-takes-all principle, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham visited the Nebraska governor’s mansion for a private meeting on Wednesday, the Washington Post reported.

“I want the law changed. I have no problem with it,” Graham, an avid Trump supporter, told the Post.

A key Nebraska lawmaker is Sen. Mike McDonnell of Omaha, who switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican at the end of this year’s legislative session after being censured by the state’s Democratic Party for supporting legislation against abortion rights. Although he is now part of the Republican majority in the legislature, he has taken a firm stand against voting for winner-take-all legislation, which he reiterated this week.

Maine now out of sight

The Republicans’ current attempt to make Nebraska a winner-take-all state is different from last time, as Maine no longer has the ability to make the same change. This change could have negated the effect of Nebraska’s extra electoral votes for Trump.

When the fight over Nebraska’s electoral system flared up again in April, Maine House Majority Leader Maureen Terry, a Democrat, said that if Nebraska changes its system, Maine will do the same, stripping Trump of an elector he won in 2020 when he carried one of the state’s congressional districts. Now, Maine doesn’t have the option to change its electoral vote system because it takes 90 days for legislation to become law after it passes the Maine Legislature, which would be too late for the Electoral College meeting on Dec. 17.