The GOP keeps failing to make Nebraska a winner-take-all state. Now it might ask voters to do it

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — For decades Republicans in GOP-dominated Nebraska have tried and failed to upend the state’s unusual method of splitting its presidential electoral votes by congressional district. Now, with yet another winner-take-all bill likely to fail, they are proposing to put it to a vote of the people.

The proposed referendum is billed as a backup plan to the winner-take-all measure, introduced at the request of Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, which appears to have little chance of surviving a promised filibuster. If it fails, Sen. Myron Dorn says he’ll seek to pull the referendum measure from committee in the hopes that voters will approve the change in the 2026 general election.

Republicans have tried to reverse the split vote system since the Legislature adopted it nearly 35 years ago, with most saying Nebraska should mirror the 48 states that use a winner-take-all system under which all electoral votes go to a single candidate. Maine is the only other state that splits its electoral votes.

Nebraska divides its five electoral votes with the three tied to its three congressional districts going to the top vote-getters in those districts.

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The state, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly 2-to-1, has not voted statewide for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.

In 2008, Barack Obama became the first Democratic candidate to capture the electoral vote tied to the Omaha-centered 2nd Congressional District. It happened a second time in 2020, when Joe Biden won it, and again last year for Vice President Kamala Harris, even though Republican President Donald Trump handily won the rest of the state.

The winner-take-all push effort reached a crescendo last year when both Republicans and Democrats envisioned a scenario in which a single electoral vote from Nebraska could determine the outcome of the election. Right-wing conservative activists began calling for the state’s Electoral College system to be changed, through a special election if necessary, only months ahead of the general election.

But that failed when a Republican lawmaker in Omaha refused to support it. Without his backing, Republicans didn’t have the votes to break a promised Democratic filibuster.

Republicans face the same problem this year: While they hold a super-majority of 33 seats in the officially nonpartisan unicameral Legislature, at least one lawmaker — Sen. Merv Riepe, who represents a politically divided Omaha district — has vowed not to support winner-take-all.

“It’s a poison pill for my district,” said Riepe, who faces re-election next year if he decides to run. “And it’s just not necessary. We won’t have a presidential election again until 2028. We have bigger issues to deal with this year.”

But Riepe wavered when asked whether he would support a popular referendum on winner-take-all, saying he wasn’t ready to commit. He would prefer for the other states to join Nebraska and Maine in splitting their electoral votes, he said.

But he acknowledged that a referendum could be more palatable to Omaha Republican lawmakers who might be wary of voting for a bill that would anger Democratic constituents.

“A vote of the people would be seen as a more democratic way of doing it,” he said.

At least one other Omaha Republican, Sen. Brad von Gillern, indicated that he would support the referendum for that reason. Others were not ready to say whether they supported the measures.

At a public hearings for both measures last week, far more people turned out in opposition than in support.

Among them was Warren Phelps, chairman of the Cheyenne County Republican Party, one of the most rural and staunchly Republican in the state. He said he opposes winner-take-all for fear that Republicans could find themselves on the losing end of that system in the not-so-distant future, as the state’s rural population declines while Omaha continues to grow.

“As long as the 3rd District in Nebraska has that electoral vote, we have a chip in the game,” Phelps told lawmakers.

It’s a caution that both parties should heed, said Colin Cole, director of policy, outreach and communications with More Equitable Democracy, a nonprofit dedicated to racial justice.

Winner-take-all has pushed many elected officials “further and further to the fringes,” Cole said, and drastically eroded compromise.

“It leads to extremely unstable government,” he said. “Under winner-take-all, a relatively small change in the electorate will give you dramatically different political outcomes where we’re talking, you know, a difference of 5% to 6% voter turnout can lead to 100% different policy from one administration to the next.”