Trump presses to change Nebraska election law, in fight for a sole electoral vote

By Jeff Zeleny, CNN

(CNN) — Donald Trump believes he will win four electoral votes from Nebraska, but it’s the fifth one that he is increasingly fretting about – leading the former president and his Republican allies to mount a last-ditch effort to try and change state election law only weeks before ballots are cast.

Trump made a brief call this week to Nebraska GOP lawmakers as they were meeting with Republican Gov. Jim Pillen to discuss the feasibility of overturning a 30-year law, which awards electoral votes by congressional district, rather than statewide winner-take-all.

Earlier efforts to change the law have failed – this year and in previous years – but Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina flew to Nebraska to speak with legislators Wednesday in hopes of helping to make Trump’s case. The former president called into the meeting briefly, a GOP official told CNN, hoping to win support and impress upon them the importance of a single electoral vote.

It’s yet another sign of just how close the election against Vice President Kamala Harris could be, with one electoral vote from an Omaha-area congressional district emerging as potentially pivotal. Even if Harris won the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but carried no other key battlegrounds, she would still need the so-called blue dot from Nebraska’s 2nd District to reach 270 electoral votes to win the White House.

“I hope the people in Nebraska will understand this may come down to a single electoral vote, and I just don’t believe a Harris presidency is good for Nebraska,” Graham said. “I don’t think it’s good for foreign policy interests of America.”

Trump won all five of Nebraska’s electoral votes in 2016, but won four in 2020, with Joe Biden carrying the Omaha-area district. The Harris campaign is spending millions to try and win that sole electoral vote again, with a grassroots effort playing out in front yards across Omaha featuring yard signs with blue dots, a hopeful symbol for Democrats in a sea of Nebraska red.

On the call Wednesday, the GOP official told CNN, Trump was neither threatening nor overly persuasive in his brief remarks. His campaign has spent virtually no money trying to compete in the state, a point of contention for some Republicans who believe he should try as hard as Harris to win the vote rather than fight to change the law.

The Trump call was first reported by The Washington Post.

Pillen has said he was still prepared to convene a special session of the Nebraska Legislature before the November election to change the law, but he would only do so if there was sufficient support. An effort failed earlier this year to change the law that is unique to only Nebraska and Maine.

“At this time, I have not yet received the concrete and public indication that 33 senators would vote for WTA,” Pillen said in a statement last week, referring to winner-take-all legislation. “If that changes, I will enthusiastically call a special session.”

A handful of holdouts remain, including state Sen. Mike McDonnell of Omaha, who switched his party registration from Democratic to Republican earlier this year but has so far resisted entreaties to support a winner-take-all electoral system.

His spokesman, Barry Rubin, told the Nebraska Examiner on Thursday: “Sen. McDonnell has heard compelling arguments from both sides. And as of today, (he) is still a no.”

Democrats have vowed to try and block any last-minute attempts to change the law before the November election.

“We’re being very watchful and mindful of whether or not it happens,” said Tony Vargas, a state senator who is challenging GOP Rep. Don Bacon in the 2nd District, one of the most competitive seats in the country. “It can change right up until Election Day, theoretically.”

Bacon and the four other members of the state’s federal delegation, all Republicans, renewed their call this week to support changing the Nebraska law, writing in a letter: “It is past time that Nebraska join 48 other states in embracing winner-take-all in presidential elections.”

The Harris campaign and Nebraska Democratic officials are keeping a close eye on any last-minute efforts to change the election law. When the matter came up for a vote earlier this year during the regular session of the Legislature, the measure was 17 votes shy of passing.

Nebraska Democratic Party chairwoman Jane Kleeb said those 17 votes “are very solid.”

“Both Trump and Harris have the ability to compete for Nebraskans’ votes,” Kleeb told CNN. “Democrats take our responsibilities seriously and are spending our time knocking doors, calling voters and putting out yard signs rather than wasting our time bullying elected officials, which is all the Republicans seem to be doing these days.”

Trump benefited from the system in Maine, a blue state, where he won a single electoral college vote in 2016 and 2020 despite losing statewide. Democrats are less optimistic about a Maine sweep, party officials say, than winning one of Nebraska’s electoral votes.

Time has run out for Maine to change its law, state officials have said, with 90 days required for any legislation to take effect. That has drawn even more attention to Trump’s effort to change the Nebraska system.

Democrats have dominated advertising spending in the key Omaha media market. Since Harris rose to the top of the Democratic ticket in July, her campaign has spent about $4.4 million, according to a CNN analysis of AdImpact data, while a few allied outside groups have spent slightly more than $1 million more.

Going forward, Democrats are also poised to have a big advertising advantage. The party has about $6 million in future bookings in Nebraska, according to AdImpact data, with more than $1 million in airtime booked per week for the final month of the race.

Republicans have invested very little in the state, according to AdImpact data, with about $103,000 from the Trump campaign.

CNN’s Alayna Treene, David Wright and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.

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