'Understand The National Picture': Lindsay Graham Travels To Nebraska To Convince Lawmakers To Revert To Winner-Take-All Electoral System

On Wednesday, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) traveled to Nebraska to convince Republican legislators that the state should revert to a winner-take-all system rather than the current system that allocates electors via the popular vote and congressional districts. Graham's visit to the state is the latest attempt by Republicans to give Trump a slight advantage in the 2024 race by giving him one more electoral college vote that could win him the White House.

The South Carolina senator's visit comes after Gov. Jim Pillen (R-NE) explained that he would call a special session to take up a winner-take-all bill only if there were enough votes to pass. So far, Republicans in the Cornhusker state believe they are only two to three votes short of a majority in the unicameral legislature to pass the legislation. "Depending on how the count comes up, it may very well decide who the next president United States is going be. And [Graham] just wanted us to understand the big picture, that this is a national issue, not just in Nebraska," State Sen. Tom Brewer (R), the chairman of the Legislature's Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, explained to 1011Now. 

More than a dozen Republican senators and Secretary of State Bob Evnan attended the meeting in Lincoln. With early voting beginning on October 1 and the election less than two months away, Republicans are running out of time to change the way they allocate electoral votes. Lawmakers have insisted that they would like to see the bill signed by the governor before early voting begins, but the legislation could go into effect up until November 5.

"The things that were discussed by the governor and also [Graham] were just the costs involved in having an extension of the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris administration," said State Sen. Loren Lippincott (R). "It was the underlying principles that are at stake here, not necessarily the personality of the candidates, but instead the ideas as to what is at risk."

If the governor calls a special session and lawmakers pass the bill, Harris' path to reelection narrows dramatically. Under the current system, Democrats would only have to win the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan in addition to Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. However, if the Cornhusker State decides to revert to a winner-take-all system, Harris would have to win an additional state - Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, or North Carolina - to win the presidency without the electoral college vote being tied. In a tie scenario where each candidate receives 269 electoral votes, the House of Representatives, via each state's delegation, votes to decide who will be the next president.

Nebraska, which is only joined by Maine in assigning electoral votes by congressional district, instituted its split vote system in 1991. Barack Obama was the first Democrat to win an electoral vote from the state in 2008. Biden replicated that feat in 2020. The current system allocates two electoral votes to the winner of the state's popular vote and one electoral vote each for each of its three congressional districts.

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