In a winning blow for democracy and a losing blow for Donald Trump, it looks as if the great state of Nebraska will not be making its electoral vote allocation winner-take-all in 2024. The good news comes thanks to a Republican (what?) whose support was crucial to the endeavor. It seems that voters were calling the office of this Republican, and in a novel twist, he chose listening to his constituents over doing Trump’s bidding. (Whaaaaaaat???)
The Republican is Mike McDonnell, a state senator, and to be fair, he was a Democrat until the state party censured him a few months ago for the crime of apostasy. (He voted in favor of some anti-abortion and anti-transgender legislation.) So McDonnell switched parties.
But McDonnell still represents Omaha, the only one of Nebraska’s five congressional districts that occasionally gives its one electoral vote to the Democratic nominee for president even while it keeps sending Republicans to Congress. And he’d like to keep his job, or possibly be mayor of Omaha someday, which would be less likely to happen if he let the GOP snag the presidency by changing the way the state allocates electoral votes fewer than six weeks before the election.
“Elections should be an opportunity for all voters to be heard, no matter who they are, where they live, or what party they support,” McDonnell said in a statement. “I have taken time to listen carefully to Nebraskans and national leaders on both sides of the issue. After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”
This might not seem like a big deal, as it is only one electoral vote. But in the current calculus, there are scenarios where that one vote gets Kamala Harris the 270 she needs to win. Can you imagine if she loses by one vote because of this blatant ratfucking? The screaming might shift Earth’s orbit.
But legislators pushing for the switch need a supermajority of Nebraska’s unicameral legislature to make it happen, which they can’t get while at least one member of the GOP holds out. And the Republican governor, Jim Pillen, won’t call for a special legislative session unless he’s sure he’s got that supermajority.
McDonnell did tell the governor he’d support putting a constitutional amendment authorizing the switch to winner-take-all to a public referendum to let the voters decide, but obviously that can’t happen this election cycle. Democrats can jump off that bridge when they come to it in 2028.
Of course, there is always the chance McDonnell could change his mind when everyone stops paying attention. But he seems pretty determined to actually do the right thing. One of his fellow Republican senators told the Examiner that his announcement “kind of closes the casket” on the idea. Let us hope this is true and not some bullshit feint by the GOP to get people to look away.
You perhaps recall just a few days ago, when Trump dispatched his cornpone vizier, Lindsey Graham, to pitch Jim Pillen on the idea. Appearing on Sunday on “Meet the Press,” Graham told Kristen Welker that changing Nebraska’s vote allocation now would be doing it through the democratic process. We assume he feels the same way about not changing it.
Graham had met with McDonnell and a couple of dozen other Republican legislators in Nebraska to talk about the idea, but he obviously couldn’t close the deal. We hope this doesn’t affect his next tee time at Bedminster.
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