It’s a very close presidential election, so unsurprisingly Team Trump is looking for an illicit edge, as I explained at New York:
With the major-party presidential candidates in close battles in a sparse landscape of battleground states, every electoral vote matters. There are scenarios where eitherĀ Kamala HarrisĀ orĀ Donald TrumpĀ wins 269 or 270 electoral votes. Part of the underlying picture is that each of them has been expected to snag a single Electoral College vote from one of the two states (Maine and Nebraska) that allocate them by congressional district. Biden won the Omaha-based Second Congressional District of Nebraska in 2020, when Trump won the largely rural Second Congressional District of Maine. Polls are showing the same outcome is likely this year.
So the two campaigns have hungrily looked at a potential gain or loss of an electoral vote if either state adopted a winner-take-all system. But only Nebraska, pushed aggressively by Team Trump, has seriously moved toward taking that stepĀ in 2024. It hasnāt happened yet, in part because of internal Nebraska Republican dissension and in part because Maine Democrats have threatened to retaliate and make the whole exercise pointless. But now, at the very last minute, the heist may be back on, as the NebraskaĀ ExaminerĀ reports:
“The national Republican push to help former President Donald Trump win all five of Nebraskaās Electoral College votes is ramping up again, and this time it might work.
“Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen on Wednesday hosted two dozen state senators at the Governorās Mansion, along with Secretary of State Bob Evnen, the stateās chief election official.
“Several who attended the meeting said some senators who had wavered earlier showed more support now for changing Nebraska to the winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes this year.”
Pillen has talked off and on in recent weeks about calling a special session of the legislature (the stateās second this year) to give Trump this very special gift if he could secure the votes to overcome a likely Democratic-led filibuster. Now heās bringing in some outside help:
“State senators at Wednesdayās meeting at the Governorās Mansion heard from Trump ally U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., about the national security and economic stakes if voters donāt return Trump to the White House.
“A national GOP spokeswoman said Grahamās visit shows how seriously Republicans are treating the need for Trump to win Nebraskaās 2nd District. Some have argued it could break a 269-269 Electoral College tie.”
One Republican legislator involved in this skullduggery dismissed complaints about such a last-minute change by citing the substitution of Harris for Biden on the Democratic side. Apparently, rules of fair play no longer matter, if they ever did, to Trumpās backers.
So why didnāt Pillen (and Lindsey Graham, and Trumpās other operatives) put on a full-court press earlier? ThisĀ explanation from Politico Playbook is persuasive:
“Back in April, when the Nebraska idea was first gaining steam, Maineās Democratic House Majority Leader Maureen Terry issued a statement indicating that if Nebraska made such a move,Ā she would push for a like-for-like moveĀ in her state, which delivered one electoral vote to Trump in 2016 and 2020.
“[Democratic] Gov. Janet Mills would be required to call a special session of the legislature. But the stickier wicket is in the timing: A bill only becomes law in MaineĀ 90 days after itās passed, unless the bill receives a two-thirds vote in each chamber (Democrats currently have majorities, but not supermajorities). Weāre 46 days away from Nov. 5, and 87 days from Dec. 16, when electoral votes are set to be cast.”
More than likely, the electoral-vote robbers chose to postpone their gambit until it was too late for Democrats to neutralize the theft in Maine.
It appears the effort to nail down the votes needed to pull off the Nebraska heist will come down to a very small handful of state senators. All sorts of horse-trading could ensue. But there are good odds Republicans will ārigā the Electoral College by one vote, and unless a creative lawsuit is in the offing, no one will be able to do anything about it.
