A last-minute effort by some Nebraska Republicans to alter how that state allots Electoral College votes for this year’s presidential elections has raised another question: Would Democrats do the same in Maine?
Nebraska and Maine are the only two states to award Electoral College votes based on who wins each of their congressional districts. All other 48 states use a winner-take-all system, where the candidate who gets the most votes is awarded all of the state’s electoral votes.
Changing this system could have a dramatic impact on who gets elected president, in the 2024 presidential election and beyond.
With days before the legislative session ends in Nebraska, a movement backed by conservative activists has pressured state lawmakers to change the law to make Nebraska a winner-take-all state, thereby bringing it in line with the rest of the nation.
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The effort is endorsed by former president Donald Trump, the state’s Republican Governor Jim Pillen, and US Senator Pete Ricketts. Getting the Legislature to act on it is another question. Efforts to add an amendment to an existing bill last week failed 36-8.
On Tuesday, however, conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA hosted a rally in Omaha hoping to up the pressure on lawmakers to make the move either before the legislative session ends on April 18 or by having Pillen call a special session for the sole purpose of making the change. A pop-up political committee that formed in opposition is running television ads making the case that the move makes Nebraska’s votes matter more.
All of this fuss is likely over a single Electoral College vote, but it could be an extremely important one.
While Nebraska has had this Electoral College system since 1992, it didn’t matter until 2008 when Barack Obama was able to pick off a congressional district in the deeply Republican state. It was the first time in American history the quirk has ever happened, despite Maine having a similar law since 1972.
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In 2016, Trump won Maine’s rural 2nd Congressional District though he lost the statewide count. In 2020, Joe Biden won the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District in Nebraska, while Trump won the 2nd Congressional District in Maine.
Here is why all of this matters in 2024. As the race currently stands, Trump and Biden are competing to win six major swing states that Biden won in 2020: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia.
The way the math works is this: Biden could lose half of those states — Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, and all other states voting the same way as 2020 — and still get the necessary 270 electoral votes to win. In fact, Biden would get 270 electoral votes to Trump’s 268 votes.
If Nebraska changed its system to winner-take-all, then the race would be tied at 269, kicking the fate of the presidential contest to the House of Representatives under a complicated system that currently benefits Republicans.
The prospect of this happening has not alarmed Maine Democrats enough to make a counter-move of their own and essentially cancel out any Nebraska action. Biden won Maine statewide by 9 percent in 2020, despite losing the 2nd Congressional District.
When contacted by the Globe, no Maine Democratic legislative leader, including House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, backed changing to a winner-take-all system, nor did the Maine Democratic Party.
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US Representative Jared Golden, a Democrat who represents the Maine district Trump won, said he favored keeping things the same.
“Questions about how Nebraska chooses its electors are for Nebraskans to answer,” Golden said. “Likewise, I’m confident Maine will continue to run our elections the way we see fit without regard for what other states’ residents think or do. As the representative for Maine’s Second District, I think what we do in Maine is fine the way it is now.”
One reason why Mainers might like the current situation? All of the attention, according to University of Maine political scientist Mark Brewer, who notes that George W. Bush and Donald Trump campaigned there ahead of presidential elections. Jill Biden also campaigned in the state just days ahead of the 2020 election.
That said, the Maine Legislature is considering a different proposal on the Electoral College. An effort to have the state join an interstate compact to allot the state’s electoral votes based on the national popular vote passed the Maine House by a single vote last week.
In an interview, Maine state Representative Laura Supica, a Bangor Democrat who chairs the committee that passed the interstate compact bill, said simply that matching Nebraska’s efforts is “a conversation that isn’t happening here.”
Indeed, as Maine House Republican Communications Director John Bott noted, although Maine Republicans would oppose such an effort, right now they are organizing against the interstate compact bill, which would do an end-around on the Electoral College nationwide.
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James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him @jamespindell and on Instagram @jameswpindell.