Dem
51
GOP
49
Forty-eight of the 50 states award all their electoral votes to the statewide winner. Nebraska and Maine give one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district and two electoral votes to the statewide winner. Sometimes that matters. In Nebraska, NE-02 (Omaha) has a PVI of EVEN and Democrats sometimes win one electoral vote there, as Joe Biden did in 2020. Since Republicans expect the presidential race to be close in 2024, they want to change the rules wherever they can to help Donald Trump.
So, a bill has now been introduced in the theoretically-nonpartisan-but-actually-Republican-controlled unicameral state legislature (the state Senate, since the state House was abolished in 1934) to go to winner-take-all like 48 of the other states. In practice, this could result in one more electoral vote for Donald Trump this year. Trump is pushing hard to get the bill passed. Every little bit could help, after all.
The bill was introduced by state Sen. Loren Lippincott (R). He doesn't want to have a straight up-or-down vote on it because the state Senate has a filibuster and he doesn't think the votes for cloture are there. Consequently, he wants to attach it as an amendment to some other bill that would have the votes to overcome a filibuster.
Yesterday, one Democrat, Mike McDonnell, switched to the GOP, which would give it just enough votes to break a filibuster on a stand-alone bill. But McDonnell said he would still vote against the change. Charlie Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA, has now urged his 3 million followers to try to pressure the governor and legislature to do everything they can to get the bill through. Kirk asked Nebraskans to "demand their state stop pointlessly giving strength to their political enemies."
Of course, when the current law about electoral votes was adopted, it was seen as more democratic than a system that gives 100% of the electoral votes to a candidate who gets 51% of the statewide vote (or, depending on circumstances, less than 51%). In fact, if every state adopted the Nebraska/Maine system, some of the objections to the Electoral College would go away. In particular, instead of candidates spending close to 100% of their effort in seven states, they would be battling over the 87 districts in 28 states that are between R+5 and D+5 (inclusive). Blue states like California don't want to do this because there are red districts in the state. Red states like Texas don't want to do this because there are blue districts in the state. It would only work if done nationally, all at once.
One problem the bill has is that the legislative session in Nebraska does not run all year. In fact, there are only 6 more working days, so it is pretty much now or never for the bill. (V)