Graham met Nebraska leaders in push to get Trump one more electoral vote
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Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks during briefing on Aug. 12 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo: Vitalii Nosach/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) met with Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and around a dozen Republican state lawmakers Wednesday as Republicans seek a last-minute change to the way the Cornhusker state allocates its electoral votes, per multiple reports.
Why it matters: Nebraska and Maine are the only states that don't apportion votes on a winner-take-all basis. Vice President Kamala Harris looks likely to pick up the swing congressional district around Omaha — a single electoral vote which could prove decisive depending on how other swing states break down.
- Graham and other Republicans, including Pillen, want to change to a winner-take-all system before November. That would virtually guarantee former President Trump all of the state's electoral votes.
- If Harris were to win the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but lose the Sun Belt swing states, the race would come down to which candidate won that single purple district in Nebraska.
Zoom in: Republicans have failed to gain sufficient support to overcome all the procedural hurdles to making the change, so Harris looks likely to take that vote — for now at least.
Driving the news: Nebraska's KOLN-TV first reported that Graham spoke to the lawmakers at the governor's mansion to try and encourage the final holdouts to rally behind the change.
- A spokesperson for Graham confirmed KOLN-TV's reporting but did not say whether he was acting as an envoy of the Trump campaign, as NBC reported. The Trump campaign did not provide comment.
- Most of the state senators who were present at the meeting are ready to pass a winner-take-all bill, the report said.
Yes, but: Pillen said in a statement last week that he would not call a special session to reconsider the state's apportionment of votes without "clear and public indication" that 33 senators would vote to back the change.
- A previous effort to change the state's system was sidelined by a procedural roadblock in April before the legislature's session ended.
- While senators estimate 30 to 31 votes are confirmed, KOLN reported, the final few needed to satisfy Pillen's threshold have yet to signal support.
What they're saying: "As I have consistently made clear, I strongly support statewide unity and joining 48 other states by awarding all five of our electoral college votes to the presidential candidate who wins the majority of Nebraskans' votes," Pillen said in the Friday statement.
- "As I have also made clear, I am willing to convene the Legislature for a special session to fix this 30-year-old problem before the 2024 election," he added.
State of play: Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District — a blue speck among the red — went to President Biden in 2020.
- Under the state's current system, a single electoral vote is allocated to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district, while the remaining two electoral votes go to the state's popular vote winner.
- The only other state that uses this system is Maine, where Trump picked up one electoral vote in 2020 with the other three going Democratic.
- Lawmakers in Maine have said that if Nebraska changes to a winner-take-all system they will move to do the same.]
Zoom out: Trump said in a social media post earlier this year that the change would be "right for Nebraska."
- RNC co-chair Michael Whatley echoed the former president in April, writing that, "President Trump and Republicans are united: Nebraska should shift to a winner-take-all system for its electoral votes."
The bottom line: State Sen. Loren Lippincott, who sponsored the failed winner-take-all bill during the regular legislative session, told KOLN she thinks the meeting "did move the needle."
- But with early voting just weeks away in Nebraska, lawmakers don't have much time to consolidate the support Pillen has said he needs to see to call a special session.
Go deeper: Behind the Curtain: Toss-up America
