Politics

How Trump could lose to Harris because of a red state

Published

2 years ago

November 12, 2024

How Trump could lose to Harris because of a red state

Former President Donald Trump is no stranger to trying to strong-arm his fellow Republicans into changing the rules to benefit him. Nebraska has become the focal point of his latest attempt to game the system ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Looking to prevent a case where Vice President Kamala Harris ekes out a win because of the state’s quirky way of divvying up its electoral votes, Republicans loyal to Trump are running a last-second effort to snatch that victory out of reach.

Forty-eight states assign their electoral votes via a winner-takes-all system, doling them all out to whoever wins the popular vote statewide. But Nebraska’s hybrid system has two of the state’s five electoral votes go to the popular vote winner, while the remaining three are awarded to the winner of each congressional district. (The only other state to use a similar hybrid model is Maine.)

The GOP’s push is attempting to prevent what at first glance appears to be an unlikely scenario

The GOP’s push is attempting to prevent what at first glance appears to be an unlikely scenario: Harris winning the “blue wall” swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and Trump winning Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, three Sun Belt states he lost in 2020. In such a scenario, Harris could win 270 Electoral College votes and the presidency with the single electoral vote from Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which President Joe Biden won in 2020.

But if Nebraska gets rid of its way of appropriating Electoral College votes, then the two campaigns would have a 269-269 tie. The Electoral College hasn’t seen a candidate fail to get a majority of votes since the election of 1824. Per the Constitutionthe House of Representatives then chooses the president, and the Senate chooses the vice president. The House would then vote by delegation in a “contingent election,” with Republicans likely controlling a majority of seats in enough states to give the win to Trump.

Trump and Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, have been calling on state lawmakers to switch to a winner-takes-all system since at least April. The Legislature didn’t make the swap during its regular session, but the state’s congressional delegation thinks Pillen should call an emergency session to force through the change.

If Republicans in Nebraska did change the state’s law, it would happen too late for Democrats in Maine to act as a counterbalance to such obvious shenanigans. As NBC News reported last weekit “takes 90 days for legislation to go into effect in Maine after it is enacted, and Thursday marked 89 days until the Electoral College is scheduled to meet on Dec. 17, meaning it’s already too late for the Maine Legislature to change to a winner-take-all system under normal rules.” Immediate “emergency” legislation would require a supermajority that Democrats lack, leaving their split system — which is likely to award one of the state’s four electoral votes to Trump — on the books.

Trump himself reportedly called on at least one state senator in Nebraska to press the issue, according to The Washington Postbut we still may not see this latest pressure campaign bear fruit. State Sen. Loren Lippincot, a Republican who led the effort to change to winner-takes-all system last year, told the Omaha World-Herald last week that “the proposal remains two or three votes shy of overcoming a filibuster to pass, just as it was at the end of this year’s legislative session.” And on Monday, one of those GOP “no” votes made perfectly clear that he wasn’t going to be swayed to back any last-minute change to the current system.

Despite the wheels seemingly coming off, the campaign to alter the rules in Nebraska puts three things on display.

Despite the wheels seemingly coming off, the campaign to alter the rules in Nebraska puts three things on display. First, we have before us yet another example of the GOP’s ongoing projection issues. In messaging that’s endorsed by the Republican Party, Trump is constantly lying about his political adversaries unfairly attacking himclaiming that his plans to strike out against them if he’s elected again are counterpunches. Likewise, Trump and Republicans made it a point to accuse Democrats in blue states of cheating in 2020 by making it easier for voters of all political persuasions to cast absentee ballots during a global pandemic. And, yet, these same Republicans talk about this naked attempt to weigh the dice in Trump’s favor in Nebraska as if it’s only fair.

Second, the demand to change Nebraska’s rules also shows how attempts to reform the Electoral College can backfire. Maine switched away from a winner-take-all system in 1969, and Nebraska did so in 1991. As of 2008, neither had had an election in which the electoral votes were split between candidates. Since then, it’s happened twice in both states: in Maine in 2016 and 2020, and in Nebraska in 2008 and 2020. Both states made changes that seem eminently reasonable at first glance — but it’s not the fix that many would have assumed at the time.

In theory, splitting up a state’s electoral votes may be more democratic and encourage candidates to compete in states that might otherwise be deemed safe for one and unwinnable for the other. In Omaha, the biggest city in the “blue dot” of Nebraska, Harris and Trump are spending resources they probably wouldn’t if Nebraska were still a winner-take-all state. But in a world where gerrymandering exists, what is intended to be a pro-democratic reform has the potential to be used anti-democratically instead if it became more widespread, watering down the will of the voters instead of enhancing it.

And, finally, the fact that we have to even consider any of this is patently ridiculous. The Electoral College is an elitist, antidemocratic mess that’s resulted in almost all this century’s presidential elections coming down to a handful of voters in a handful of states. Forget tinkering around the edges. We need to get rid of the Electoral College system completely. This outdated relic leaves the U.S. open to the kind of shenanigans that Trump and his allies are trying to pull in Nebraska when what we need is a system that lets candidates focus on winning the most votes nationwide.

CORRECTION (Sept. 26, 2024, 12:25 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the results of the 2016 presidential election in Nevada. Hilary Clinton won the state, not Donald Trump.

Hayes Brown

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for BLN Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.

Politics

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

Published

18 hours ago

September 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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Politics

Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.

In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.

Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.

Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.

“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.

Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.

“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.

In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.

“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.

He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”

The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.

“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.

Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.

“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.

He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”

While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.

“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”

Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.

Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.

“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.

He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”

Politics

Missouri Supreme Court pauses GOP gerrymander, likely netting Democrats 1 House seat

Published

3 days ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.

The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.

Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.