Sen. Lindsey Graham is on a campaign to alter Nebraska‘s election laws to deliver an advantage to former president Donald Trump.
“The entire federal delegation of Nebraska, House members and two senators, want this changed,” Graham said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “To my friends in Nebraska, that one electoral vote could be the difference between Harris being president and not, and she’s a disaster for Nebraska and the world.”
Under current law, Nebraska’s electoral votes are divided by congressional district, but Trump, Graham and other Republicans nationally and in the state want to change the rules to winner-take-all. Without the change, it would be possible for Harris to win the electoral college by a very narrow margin. As long as Harris wins Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, along with one Nebraska congressional district — likely the one that includes Omaha — she could lose every other Sun Belt battleground state and still eke out a 270-268 victory.
If the Republicans get their way, and Nebraska’s electoral votes are allocated to only one candidate, then the above scenario would result in an electoral college tie, 269-269. That would send the decision to the House of Representatives, with each state delegation getting a vote. Because more Republicans control state delegations, they could deliver Trump a win.
Graham isn’t just pushing for this change on the Sunday show circuit. Last week, the senator met with approximately a dozen Republican state lawmakers in Nebraska who support it. But this is not yet a done deal. It would require Nebraska’s governor to convene a special legislative session, which Gov. Jim Pillen has said he supports, as long as he can confirm enough senators will vote for the measure.
“At this time, I have not yet received the concrete and public indication that 33 senators would vote for WTA,” Pillen said in a Sept. 13 statement. “If that changes, I will enthusiastically call a special session.”
When Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker asked Graham about the odds that Nebraska will make this change, he said the chances were “50-50, down to two people.”
One of the remaining holdouts is GOP State Sen. Mike McDonnell, who thus far has opposed changing the rules. According to The New York Times, if McDonnell publicly changes his mind, others will follow.
“Senator McDonnell has heard a lot of compelling arguments for and against, but as of right now he still remains a no vote,” McDonnell spokesman Barry Rubin said Friday, per the Times. “The only way he would think about switching would be if someone gave him a compelling reason for why it made sense on the merits of the winner-take-all situation.”