The Trump campaign is making a last-ditch plea to Nebraska Republicans to change how their state awards electoral votes, switching to a winner-take-all system to deny Democrats a possible vote from the 2nd Congressional District.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham met with Republican senators in Lincoln on Wednesday, telling Semafor that Gov. Jim Pillen and Sen. Pete Ricketts invited him to talk about the campaign’s strategy. It’s a sign that Republicans are sweating every single electoral vote now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee.
Both Pillen and Ricketts, himself a former governor, have endorsed the idea of eliminating the state’s electoral vote split, which has been in place since 1992; in 2008 and 2020, the Democratic presidential nominee carried the Omaha-based 2nd district. The meeting was first reported by Nebraska’s 1011 Now….
What’s frustrated conservatives all year about the Nebraska vote split is that the party isn’t using its majority to prevent a potential disaster — a one-vote electoral college defeat.
They have until the day before the election to change this system, and it’s too late for Maine Democrats to change their own electoral vote split to prevent its rural 2nd Congressional District from going to Trump. To implement that before Nov. 4, Maine Democrats would need a supermajority vote; Democrats control the legislature in Augusta, but they don’t have a supermajority.
Republicans may not have one in Nebraska, either. One of the votes they need would come from Mike McDonnell, a former Democrat who switched parties this year, citing his anti-abortion views. And he’s seen as a likely candidate for Omaha mayor next year; voting with Trump on this could be politically toxic in a city that keeps moving to the left.