LINCOLNVILLE, Maine — As Nebraska Republicans consider changing state law to give Donald Trump an extra Electoral College vote this fall, their Democratic counterparts in Maine have little to fall back on, not even points.
The only two states that apportion Electoral College votes by congressional district, Republican-leaning Nebraska and Democratic-leaning Maine, play unusual roles in presidential politics because their systems allow each party to pick one elector in a state where they would get nothing under a typical winner-takes-all system.
Nebraska Republicans have tried and failed to change the state’s rules for years, citing at times how the system gives Nebraska relevance on the national political stage and concerns that Maine Democrats would undo their exercise by moving to winner-take-all. too. And they have failed despite recent pressure from Trump and other national Republicans this spring.
In 2020, Trump won one electoral vote in rural Maine’s 2nd Congressional District and is once again favored, while Joe Biden won one electoral vote in Omaha, Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District.
But the latest Republican push for a winner-takes-all system in Nebraska, where Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C. is lobbying state lawmakers on Trump’s behalf, comes after a key deadline in Maine that makes it nearly impossible for the blue. to block the red’s movement.
The law takes 90 days to take effect in Maine after it takes effect, and as of Thursday it was 89 days before the Electoral College is scheduled to convene on Dec. 17, meaning it’s already too late for the Maine legislature to emerge victorious. take all system according to normal rules.
State law allows for an “emergency” law that takes effect immediately, but activating that provision requires a two-thirds majority in both legislative chambers.
Democrats control both houses of the Maine Legislature, but they don’t have anywhere near a large majority in the House. Even if every Democrat in the state House wanted to oppose Nebraska — far from certain — they would need more than a dozen Republicans to join them to meet the two-thirds threshold.
Democrats have a larger majority in Maine’s 35-seat Senate, but they still need at least a handful of Republicans to join them with all 22 Democratic members.
And Maine GOP leaders have already signaled they have no interest in helping Democrats abandon their unusual formula for awarding electoral votes.
“Maine is the gold standard for presidential election processes in the United States,” state House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham told the Bangor Daily News on Thursday. “We should be trying to get other states to use a more representative process like ours, and not change to a winner-take-all process like other states.”
It’s unclear whether Trump’s allies in the Nebraska legislature would ultimately get the votes needed to change the law, especially since they abandoned a similar plan just months ago when GOP leaders realized they lacked support. Supporters of the move, however, say they believe they can reverse the restrictions, especially if Trump pushes.
If Nebraska can change its rule and Maine can’t, Trump could get an extra electoral vote — opening up a certain close election scenario that would result in an Electoral College tie and set in motion the arcane process of deciding the House presidential primary. , where the Republicans would gain the upper hand.
The scenario is plausible: If Vice President Kamala Harris were to win Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — her strongest battleground states in current polls — while losing other swing states, she would get 269 electoral votes. That’s one short of the 270 needed to win the presidency.
Right now, the most likely place for Harris to pick up the one extra vote he needs is Omaha’s congressional district, a closely divided district that Biden won by nearly 7 points four years ago.
But if Nebraska Republicans were to switch to a winner, then in the same scenario where Harris wins Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and any other battleground state, the Electoral College would be deadlocked at 269-269 with no winner declared.
The Constitution stipulates that Congress decides on a tie in the Electoral College after the new one is sworn in after the November elections. The Senate would choose the vice-president, and the president would vote in the parliament – but not according to the normal rules.
In the House, instead of each member getting one vote, each state delegation would get one vote, and the speakership would go to whoever got a majority of the state delegations (at least 26). Regardless of who controls the House next year, Trump would be a heavy favorite. Republicans control most of the state delegations, and their popularity will maintain that advantage even when they control the majority of the House of Representatives itself.
Meanwhile, Republicans are favored to win the Senate this year, giving Trump’s nominee, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, an edge if the upper chamber were to decide the vice president’s term.
None of these can happen. And Nebraska conservatives have repeatedly tried to move their state to winner-take-all before but failed, most recently this spring when they made a serious attempt but didn’t have enough support to overcome a legislative fiasco.
But unlike in the past, Maine — and therefore national Democrats — no longer seem to have a good way to fight change in Nebraska.
“Whether we can retaliate or not, that’s exactly why we voted for Maine to join the National Popular Vote Compact,” Democratic state Rep. Dan Ankeles said Thursday on X. “Because this drama is a ridiculous and unfair way to elect a president.”
Alex Seitz-Wald reports from Lincolnville and Ben Kamisar from Washington, DC
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
