Nebraska Republicans may change law that could determine presidential election outcome

Former President Donald Trump is making a renewed effort to secure one of Nebraska's Electoral College votes which could decide who wins the White House in November.

The Republican nominee is speaking to Nebraska state legislators in a second attempt to usher a bill through the unicameral legislature that would change the state's electoral vote allocation system and take away Vice President Kamala Harris' chance to win one of the state's five votes, according to the Nebraska Examiner and other outlets.

If successful, that gambit could alter the electoral map, forcing Harris to carry another state in order to win the presidency.

A purple dot in a sea of red

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

Although Nebraska is a reliably Republican-leaning state, its 2nd Congressional District, which surrounds Omaha, has sometimes gone for Democrats in recent presidential elections, including to 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 carries the “blue wall” battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin she could win an Electoral College majority with the one vote from Nebraska. She would not need to carry any of the Sun Belt swing states such as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

Current polls show Harris tied or ahead in the "blue wall" states but trailing in some of the Sun Belt battlegrounds.

Some Nebraska Republicans have been trying to alter the system of splitting electoral votes by congressional district since it was approved by the Legislature in 1991, but the bills have either been vetoed by a Democratic governor or died 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 usher a bill through the Legislature to reinstate the state winner system. Although Republicans are in the majority and Pillen was supportive, the effort didn't have the 33 votes it needed to overcome a filibuster, but Pillen and other state Republicans are toying with idea of calling a special session to push it through if they can find the votes.

"I and other conservatives have worked diligently to assess legislative support for WTA [winner-take-all] in a pre-election special session," Pillen said in a statement last week.

"At this time, I have not yet 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 attempt to sway a handful of Republican state senators to back winner-take-all, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham paid a visit to the Nebraska governor's mansion Wednesday in a closed door meeting, according to the Washington Post.

"I want the law changed. I’ve made no qualms about it," Graham an enthusiastic Trump supporter, told the Post.

One key Nebraska legislator is Omaha Sen. Mike McDonnell, who changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican at the end of this year's legislative session, after he was censured by the state Democratic Party for supporting anti-abortion rights legislation. While he is now a part of the legislature's Republican majority, he took a firm stance on not voting for winner-take-all legislation, which he reiterated this week.

Maine now out of the picture

The current push by Republicans to make Nebraska a winner-take-all state is different from last time because there is no longer the opportunity for Maine to make the same change ? which could have neutralized the effect of Nebraska putting an additional electoral vote in Trump's column.

When the battle over Nebraska's electoral system was reignited in April, Maine House Majority Leader Maureen Terry, a Democrat, said if Nebraska acts on changing its system, Maine will do the same and take away an electoral vote from Trump that he won in 2020 when he carried one of the state's congressional districts. Now, Maine doesn't have the ability to change their electoral vote system because it takes 90 days for legislation to go into effect after it is enacted by the Maine Legislature, which would be too late for the Dec. 17 meeting of the Electoral College.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump pressing Nebraska legislature to change electoral vote rule