To a Republican tuning in to NBC News\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d on Sunday, what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was proposing no doubt made perfect sense: Instead of allocating some electoral college votes by congressional district, he argued, Nebraska should give all of the state\u2019s electors to the person who wins the state.<\/p>\n
Who, in practice, would be the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a very close election,\u201d Graham noted. He compared the change he was advocating to the way in which the Democratic Party\u2019s nominee shifted in July, suggesting that this proposed change would \u201cbe through a democratic process\u201d \u2014 passage of a law in the legislature.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire federal delegation of Nebraska, House members and two senators, want this changed,\u201d Graham continued. \u201cTo my friends in Nebraska\u201d \u2014 and to any Republicans watching, certainly \u2014 \u201cthat one electoral vote could be the difference between Harris being president or not, and she\u2019s a disaster for Nebraska and for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
For non-Republicans watching, though, the effect was probably a bit different. The GOP is already advantaged by the electoral college, as the results of the 2000 and 2016 elections suggest. Changing this particular rule, one that\u2019s in effect in Maine as well, would effectively hand Trump another electoral vote without his having to gain a single additional popular vote.<\/p>\n
It was revealing that Graham attempted to frame the switch in the rules as democratic in a way that he argued President Joe Biden\u2019s withdrawal from the race wasn\u2019t. Beginning by contextualizing the move as being comparatively reflective of democratic ideals is a tacit acknowledgment that such context is politically useful. Graham\u2019s ultimate point \u2014 this will help us win \u2014 makes that very obvious. (We probably don\u2019t need to mention that a Republican legislative majority voting to give Republicans an advantage in electing the president is not more democratic than a political party changing its nominee in a way that the party\u2019s base supports.)<\/p>\n
As it stands today, with one of Nebraska\u2019s electoral votes likely (but not guaranteed) to go to Harris, there are 71 scenarios in which Harris is elected president, assuming that every state except Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin necessarily votes the way it did in 2020. In three scenarios, Harris and Trump tie, sending the election to the House (where Trump probably would be handed the presidency, regardless of the national vote total).<\/p>\n
If the final results match The Washington Post\u2019s current polling averages in each of those seven states (which they almost certainly won\u2019t), Harris would win the presidency (even giving North Carolina, which is a tie, to Trump).<\/p>\n
With a change to the rules in Nebraska, the possible outcomes would shift slightly against the Democrat. There would be 70 scenarios in which Harris wins and only one possibility of a tie. The current polling averages would still indicate a Harris victory, but by one fewer electoral vote than she would otherwise have had.<\/p>\n
(If Maine were able to match Nebraska\u2019s rule shift, which is unclear, the results would mirror the first chart above, reflecting how things stand at the moment. One to Trump from Nebraska plus one to Harris from Maine equals zero change.)<\/p>\n
What Graham is arguing, very explicitly, is that adding three scenarios in which Harris loses is worth changing Nebraska\u2019s rules. It\u2019s also worth noting, though, that Republicans are already in a stronger electoral college position relative to 2020 simply by virtue of the redistribution of electors that followed that year\u2019s census.<\/p>\n
If states offered the same number of electors that they did four years ago, there would be only 48 scenarios under which Harris would lose the electoral college \u2014 assuming the same wins and the same swing states. Thanks to the continued shift of America\u2019s population from the Northeast to the South and Southwest, a number of blue states gave up electors to red ones. That shift is already improving Trump\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
Graham and other Republicans hope to shift the electoral college even further to their party\u2019s advantage, arguing that this is simply a reflection of democracy at work.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the electoral college and thanks to such a change in Nebraska, Harris and Trump battling to the exact same popular vote totals in every state as the major-party candidates saw in 2020 would mean a net shift of eight electoral votes to the GOP. The number of scenarios in which the Democrat would lose would jump from 48 (of 128) to 57.<\/p>\n
All without the popular vote changing at all.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
To a Republican tuning in to NBC News\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d on Sunday, what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was proposing no doubt made perfect sense: Instead of allocating some electoral college votes by congressional district, he argued, Nebraska should give all of the state\u2019s electors to the person who wins the state. Who, in practice, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}