OMAHA, Neb. – Local Republicans joined conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Tuesday evening in rallying support for legislation that would shift Nebraska’s electoral vote distribution to a winner-takes-all system.
Although the bill has stalled as the current state legislative session ends on April 18, speakers at a church rally hosted by Kirk’s Turning Point Action here urged attendees to contact state leaders and request a special legislative session to enact the change. .
Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that do not use a winner-take-all system to award Electoral College votes. Nebraska awards an electoral vote to the winner of each of its three congressional districts, with the other two going to the winner of the statewide vote. in 2020 Trump won four of the state’s five electoral votesAnd Joe Biden took one from Omaha, Nebraska’s 2nd District.
“The flyover country has been insulted by coastal elites for years. Clinging to your gun and clinging to your religion, they call you pathetic. Why should we let them hang on to one more of your electoral votes?” Kirk said.
“If Massachusetts had a stupid electoral system with one red spot in Massachusetts or California [an] They will vote for Trump [a] immediate special session.
Nebraska GOP Gov. Jim Pillen he said Tuesday night He said he would call a special session “when there is enough support in the Legislature to pass it.” Efforts to attach the Electoral College measure to other bills hit the barrier last week in the state’s unicameral, technically nonpartisan Legislature.
“I am committed to taking winner-take-all across the finish line, honoring our constitutional foundation, uniting our state, and ending the three-decade-old mistake of distributing Nebraska’s electoral votes differently than any other state.” Pillen He wrote in X.
Actually state senator Loren Lippincott introduced the winner-takes-all bill In January 2023, however, it was stalled in the Legislature before a last-minute push from Trump allies. Lippincott said Lincoln Journal Star he now believes the legislation is unlikely to pass in the current session, though he thinks it could be revived next year.
Still, Kirk and other Republicans on the national stage aren’t giving up on passing the change before the 2024 presidential election.
“We were told by the unicameral people [Legislature], “This thing is dead, this thing is over,” Kirk said. “We call it Project Lazarus. We bring this thing back from the dead.”
But even some Nebraska Republicans who favor winner-takes-all say the national focus doesn’t capture the totality of the state’s legislative reality.
“They don’t understand our system, they don’t understand our process, and they don’t understand that this is such a poorly planned and organized bill that it’s here because no one cares about the bill and doesn’t do it. Things that need to be done to prepare,” said state Sen. Tom Brewer Magazine star. “Only because of Charlie Kirk’s comments did it gain any momentum.”
Claiming Nebraska’s “will to win,” state Republican Party Chairman Eric Underwood urged voters to contact lawmakers about winner-takes-all.
“Every day we will wake up and one more phone call, one more dollar, one more door, one more candidate. And we’re going to do it every way we can with our local races, and we’re going to do it in Nebraska, and we’re going to make history together,” Underwood said. “And when we pass this one more electoral vote, when we win LB 764, we will elect Donald J. Trump as the next president.”
Lincoln resident Jerry Jorgensen, who attended Kirk’s rally, said he thinks lawmakers should adopt the take-anything approach that won decades ago.
“Nebraska is Republican in a very, very big way, and a little blue dot of Omaha doesn’t need to vote in elections,” he said.