In a move that could help Donald Trump’s prospects of winning the White House, Nebraska’s GOP leadership is calling on state lawmakers to switch to a winner-take-all system for awarding Electoral College votes before Election Day.
On Wednesday, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen met with two dozen state senators and Secretary of State Bob Evnen at his official residence to encourage the GOP-controlled legislature to pass a law allocating the Cornhusker State’s five Electoral College votes to whichever presidential candidate receives the most votes statewide. South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham also reportedly attended the meeting, according to the left-wing Nebraska Examiner.
Nebraska is one of two states (the other being Maine) that splits its Electoral College votes. As explained by the National Archives, these states “appoint individual electors based on the winner of the popular vote within each Congressional district and then 2 ‘at-large’ electors based on the winner of the overall state-wide popular vote.”
During the 2020 election, Joe Biden garnered a single electoral vote by winning Nebraska’s 2nd District. The reverse happened in Maine, where Trump won the state’s 2nd District and accompanying electoral vote.
As my colleague Brianna Lyman previously explained, the fate of which candidate wins the presidential election could hinge on who comes out on top in Nebraska’s 2nd District. If Kamala Harris “were to win Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin but lose Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona, for example, [she] could still reach 270 — so long as [she] received one of Nebraska’s electoral
