Former President Donald Trump on Monday admitted almost certain defeat for his plan to foil Vice President Kamala Harris’ easiest path to the White House.
Earlier in the day, Trump and his allies’ effort to convince Nebraska to pass a last-minute change to how it allocates its Electoral College votes hit a major snag. A key holdout, state Sen. Mike McDonnell, announced that he would not support changing the law this close to a presidential 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 released by his office. “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.”
Trump criticized McDonnell, accusing him of being a “Grandstander!”
“It would have been better, and far less expensive, for everyone! Unfortunately, a Democrat turned Republican(?) State Senator named Mike McDonnell decided, for no reason whatsoever, to get in the way of a great Republican, common sense, victory,” Trump wrote on Truth, his social media platform.
McDonnell, a former Omaha Firefighters union head, left the Democratic Party earlier this year over his anti-abortion views. He had previously opposed efforts to change how Nebraska awards electoral college votes which offers Democrats a ripe pick-up opportunity in an Omaha-area congressional district.
Nebraska Republicans dominate the state’s politics, including its officially non-partisan, one-house legislature. The Nebraska Examiner reported that without McDonnell, Republicans have “no path” unless a Democrat or nonpartisan lawmaker changes their mind.
Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, has vowed only to call a special session of the legislature if public commitments from at least 33 senators are needed to overcome a filibuster. If McDonnell changed his mind, Trump allies hoped that other senators on the fence would follow him.
Trump held out hope that the cause might not be lost, adding, “I LOVE OMAHA.”
“Who knows, perhaps one of the others two Republicans that were a ‘NO’ Vote will change their minds,” he wrote.
Harris’ easiest path to the White House only works with the status quo.
Nebraska and Maine are the only states that award some of their Electoral College votes by congressional district. In 2020, President Joe Biden carried the Omaha-area 2nd District and its one Electoral College vote. Republicans are worried that the district, represented by a Republican in Congress, Rep. Don Bacon, is trending away from them.
Harris and Trump are headed for an extremely close election. If she carries the Omaha-area vote, she could win by holding onto Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — the so-called “Blue Wall” states. In that scenario, Harris could lose the other four swing states, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, and still win the Electoral College 270 to 268. Without the Omaha-area vote, the same scenario would result in a 269 to 269 tie, throwing the election to the US House of Representatives, which would almost certainly result in a Trump victory.
Before Biden dropped out of the race, the Blue Wall and Nebraska’s so-called “Blue Dot” was considered his only path to reelection. Harris has made Democrats more competitive in states like North Carolina and Nevada, but polling in those and other swing states shows very little separating the two major candidates.
