Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen is floating a special legislative session to change how the state casts electoral college votes to benefit former President Donald Trump.
Pillen’s announcement late Tuesday was an acknowledgment that the effort to change the state to a winner-take-all system won’t pass immediately — and may not happen at all. But it will keep the possibility alive.
“I look forward to partnering with legislative leaders to [move] it forward in a special session, when there is sufficient support in the Legislature to pass it,” Pillen posted on X. “I will sign [winner-take-all] into law the moment the Legislature gets it to my desk.”
The state has for decades divided its electoral votes in an unusual system where the statewide vote winner gets two electoral votes and the vote winner in each of the state’s three congressional districts gets one vote.
In 2020, now-President Joe Biden carried the state’s Omaha-based 2nd District, securing one of the state’s five electoral votes. He was the first Democrat to do so since Barack Obama in 2008.
That single electoral college vote was ultimately irrelevant in 2020, when Biden won the electoral college by a healthy margin. But it could be critical come November if the election is tighter. If the district system remained in place, Biden could win the presidency just by winning Nebraska’s 2nd District and the Midwestern battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, in addition to safely Democratic states.
But should Nebraska go to a winner-take-all system, Trump has an easier path to the White House. If he won every state he carried in 2020 and flipped Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, the two men would be deadlocked at 269 electoral votes each.
That would kick the election to the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote as a delegation — a contest Republicans would almost assuredly win.
Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican who represents the Omaha-area district and is a top…
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