GOP effort to change how Nebraska allocates electoral votes hits roadblock

A key Republican state lawmaker in Nebraska said Monday that he does not support changing how the state awards its electoral votes before the November election, foiling for now a last-ditch push by former President Donald Trump and his allies that could have reshaped the outcome of the presidential race.

“I respect the desire of some of my colleagues to have this discussion, and I have taken time to listen carefully to Nebraskans and national leaders on both sides of the issue,” state Sen. Mike McDonnell said in a statement. “After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”

McDonnell’s statement caps a monthslong battle over the way that Nebraska doles out its five electoral votes — and thus plays an outsize role in the path to the White House.

Nebraska is one of two states — the other being Maine — that awards some of its electoral votes by congressional district. That allowed Joe Biden to pick up an electoral vote in the solidly red state in 2020 by carrying the vote in a competitive House district in the Omaha area.

Trump and his allies have for months advocated for Nebraska to return to a winner-take-all system where the winner of the statewide vote captures all of the state’s electoral votes, likely benefiting Trump given Nebraska’s strong GOP lean.

Such a move could have a dramatic effect on the candidates’ strategies for winning the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House. It would block Vice President Kamala Harris’s easiest path to winning the White House — carrying Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District plus her three strongest battleground states: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

If Harris won those states, and not the other key swing states, a change to how Nebraska gives out its electoral votes could cause a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. If there were a tie, the House of Representatives would choose the next president, with each state’s congressional delegation getting one vote. All House seats are up for election in November, but most observers expect Republicans will have an edge in the number of delegations.

Winner-take-all legislation faltered in the Nebraska legislature this year, but Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, has said he could call a special session to try again if the proposal gains more support, reflecting the flux over the rules that continues in a handful of states as the campaign enters the homestretch.

Winner-take-all supporters would need 33 votes — every GOP member in the unicameral legislature — to overcome an expected Democratic filibuster. Without support from McDonnell, who has been eyeing a run for mayor of Omaha, Republicans would be at least one vote short. McDonnell has been the most public holdout, but those involved in Nebraska politics say they think there are others.

McDonnell is a former firefighter who left the Democratic Party to become a Republican this year after Democrats censured him for his anti-abortion views.

Pressure ramped up last week, when Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a Trump ally, visited the state to lobby lawmakers and Trump briefly spoke with one of them by phone.

In a statement on his Truth Social platform Monday afternoon, Trump praised the governor and Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert, said he was committed to winning all of the state’s electoral votes and expressed disappointment the state wouldn’t change its system for allocating electoral votes.

“Unfortunately, a Democrat turned Republican(?) State Senator named Mike McDonnell decided, for no reason whatsoever, to get in the way of a great Republican, common sense, victory,” Trump wrote. “Just another ‘Grandstander!’”

McDonnell said in the spring, when he left the Democrats to join the Republicans, that he opposed the winner-take-all proposal, but his office more recently suggested he could be open to it.

McDonnell said Monday he has told Pillen “that I will not change my long-held position and will oppose any attempted changes to our Electoral College system before the 2024 election.” He added that he would support a proposed constitutional amendment in the next legislative session to let Nebraska voters decide on the issue. The state switched to its current system of awarding electoral votes in 1992.

Pillen’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

After the regular legislative session ended in April, Pillen said he remained committed to getting the winner-take-all proposal “over the finish line.” He said he would work “with legislative leaders to moving it forward in a special session, when there is sufficient support in the legislature to pass it.”

The head of the Nebraska Democratic Party, Jane Kleeb, praised McDonnell in a statement Monday after he announced his position. McDonnell is “standing strong against tremendous pressure from out-of-state interests to protect Nebraskans’ voice in our democracy,” Kleeb said.

During his Wednesday visit to the state, Graham made the case for changing how electoral votes are awarded by emphasizing Trump’s approach to foreign affairs, state Sen. Merv Riepe, a Republican, said in an interview.

The same day, Riepe said he spoke to Trump by phone for a minute or so about the potential change. He described Trump as friendly. “He said, ‘Senator, I’ve heard of you,’” Riepe said. “Of course, he hadn’t. It was a polite thing to say.”

Maine, a Democratic-leaning state, also divides its electoral votes between statewide and congressional-district winners. While Democratic state lawmakers there have said they would likely change to a winner-take-all system if Nebraska does, they have also suggested it might be too late to make the switch in time for this election.

The push to change how Nebraska allocates its electoral votes comes during a broader fight over the nuts and bolts of how elections are conducted that continues to be waged in the final weeks of the campaign. On Friday, Georgia’s elections board passed a new rule that would require election officials in that battleground state to conduct hand counts alongside their machine counts on the night of the election or the next day.

The office of the state’s Republican attorney general called the measure unlawful and critics said it would introduce uncertainty into how votes are tabulated. Research has shown hand counts are less accurate than machine counts, but supporters of the new rule said it would make the election more secure and transparent.

Backers said the measure would allow them to better compare the number of ballots to the number of voters recorded as casting them, and give them a chance to reconcile any differences they find. Opponents said they should not change the rules so close to Election Day and warned it could prove costly as counties seek to hire and train more poll workers.

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Marley reported from Madison, Wis.