OMAHA, Neb.– By the time conservative activist Charlie Kirk took the stage Tuesday night, there was no doubt who prompted him to travel to Nebraska to pressure state lawmakers to adopt a winner-take-all system take for awarding votes to the Electoral College: former President Donald Trump.
“You see what’s ahead,” Kirk said before a crowd of about 500 people. “Trump versus Biden is bigger than just elections. It is a matter of the survival of civilization.”
Kirk joined the Republican Party of Nebraska, currently led by Trump loyalists, to hold the rally Tuesday at an evangelical Christian church in a mall in southwest Omaha, across from a Dollar Tree and the local chapter of the Veterans Organization of the American Legion.
Most attendees — many wearing “Stop Woke” stickers and “Make America Great Again” red ballcaps popularized by Trump — roared in approval every time Trump’s name was mentioned.
Michael Tiedeman, the 38-year-old newly elected chairman of the Sarpy County GOP, said the same momentum that saw Trump loyalists take over the state party in 2022 will fuel efforts to move Nebraska to a winner-take-all state before the election. general election.
“The Democratic Party is pouring enormous amounts of money into our second congressional district because they can get that one electoral vote,” he said.
Their target is the atypical system of the state, which divides the five presidential elections. Two are statewide votes, but the other three are tied to the state’s three congressional districts and go to the candidate who wins the popular vote in that district. Maine is the only other state that has split its electoral votes; the 48 other states award all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins statewide.
“It was probably well-intentioned, but this whole thing is just the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kirk said of Nebraska’s split system.
Trump could need every electoral vote he can get to defeat President Joe Biden in a rematch of the 2020 race. Kirk said Tuesday night’s “Win Every Vote” rally grew out of a map he and the team podcast produces saws last week, which showed that if Biden won the Rust Belt swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, an electoral vote would come from Nebraska. would give him the 270 electoral votes he needs to win re-election, even if Trump wins all the other swing states.
“One of our team members came out and said, ‘Yes, unless Nebraska is just going to fix it,’” Kirk said.
The issue gained national attention when Kirk urged his followers to call Republican Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen’s office to urge the state to take a winner-takes-all approach this year. Five hours later, Pillen released a statement calling on the Nebraska Legislature to pass a bill currently stuck in committee that would turn Nebraska into a winner-takes-all state. Soon after, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social praising Pills and urging the switch to winner-take-all Nebraska.
Republicans, who have long dominated Nebraska politics, have tried unsuccessfully to return the state to a winning mentality since it was introduced more than three decades ago in 1991. The sticking point this year has been a focus on property tax cuts, school funding and the and some wedge issues. By the time Pillen made his call for passage of a winner-take-all bill last week, there were only a handful of days left in the session — not enough time to move the bill out of committee and into by getting three rounds of debate before other priorities. accounts.
Now Kirk and Nebraska Republicans are calling on the governor to call a special session after the last day of the current session, on April 18, to approve a winner-takes-all measure.
“I had a promising phone call today with someone in the governor’s office, and they are committed to calling a special session to make this happen,” Kirk said.
While it is certainly within Pillen’s authority to do so, it is not clear whether there are enough votes for a winner-take-all bill to pass in the uniquely unicameral Nebraska legislature of 49 legislators.
The body is officially nonpartisan, but lawmakers identify themselves as Republican, Democratic or independent and tend to vote along party lines. Republicans currently hold 33 of the Legislature’s 49 seats, which is just enough to break a filibuster — as long as all 33 Republicans vote to end debate.
But Omaha Sen. Mike McDonnell — who switched parties from Democrat to Republican last week — told the Nebraska Examiner he won’t vote for a winner-take-all system.
Pillen was not present at the meeting, nor were any state lawmakers, as the Legislature worked late into the night Tuesday in the final days of this year’s session.
Still, Kirk and others like Nebraska Republican Party Chairman Eric Underwood urged the crowd attending the rally to call lawmakers daily until they agree to take up the measure and pass it before the elections in November.
“If it’s November 6th and we haven’t done everything we can, we’re going to lose this country,” Underwood told the crowd. “We’re going to go through the winner-take-all campaign. We’re going to find a way to make it happen.”