If Ms. Harris were to win the “blue wall” and lose the Sun Belt swing states, the single electoral vote in Greater Omaha could determine the winner of the presidential election.
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By Jonathan Weisman
Sept. 28, 2024, 5:03 a.m. ET
Vice President Kamala Harris holds a lead over former President Donald J. Trump for the single Electoral College vote in eastern Nebraska, according to a new poll by The New York Times and Siena College, a potentially critical prize if the overall presidential contest remains on a knife’s edge.
The likely voters of Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, in Omaha and its suburbs, favor Ms. Harris over Mr. Trump, 52 percent to 43 percent, according to the poll. That makes it clear why Mr. Trump and the national Republican Party recently made a last-ditch push to persuade the Nebraska Legislature to end its system of apportioning electoral votes in part by congressional districts and adopt a winner-take-all system.
In 2020, Mr. Trump handily won the state, but Mr. Biden captured the Second Congressional District.
A single electoral vote might seem insignificant, but if Ms. Harris were to win the so-called blue wall — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where she holds slim leads — while losing the remaining battleground states, which are Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, that Nebraska electoral vote would be the difference between a 270-268 Electoral College victory for the vice president or a 269-269 tie.
In the event of a tie, the House of Representatives would determine the winner, not by raw votes of House members but by the support of each state delegation. With more delegations in Republican control, Mr. Trump would almost certainly win.
One man, State Senator Mike McDonnell, a Democrat-turned-Republican, blocked the push on Monday, saying he would stand with a Democratic filibuster because “now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”
Mr. McDonnell is considering a run for Omaha mayor next year, and the new poll shows why his decision was probably smart local politics. Likely voters in his congressional district favored keeping their electoral vote over switching to the winner-take-all system used in 48 states, 61 percent to 31 percent. Both college-educated and non-college-educated voters favored the status quo. Even 36 percent of Republicans — and 33 percent of Trump voters — bucked the wishes of the national party and Nebraska’s Republican governor, Jim Pillen, to favor maintaining Greater Omaha’s own elector.
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Source: nytimes.com
