A Democratic leader in the State House says Maine should change the way it awards presidential electors if lawmakers in Nebraska make a similar switch.
In a bizarre example of the intense fight for every elector in 2024, Republicans and Democrats are considering changing decades-old practices in the only two states that have the ability to split their votes to the Electoral College.
In 48 of the 50 states, presidential candidates who win the statewide vote receive all of those Electoral College votes. But Maine and Nebraska award electors to whoever wins each congressional district plus two more electors to the statewide winner.
That allowed Democrat Joe Biden to pick up a single elector in deep-red Nebraska in 2020 and Republican Donald Trump to nab one elector from Maine's 2nd Congressional District, despite losing the state by seven percentage points. Trump also picked up one of Maine's four electors in 2016 while Democrat Hillary Clinton won the other three by winning the statewide vote plus the left-leaning 1st Congressional District.
But now Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and some other Republicans want the Cornhusker State to adopt a winner-take-all system. The underlying goal is to help Trump lock down every available elector headed into his fall rematch against Biden.
If that happens, Maine's House Majority Leader, Democratic Rep. Maureen "Mo" Terry of Gorham, said the Pine Tree State should follow suit.
"Voters in Maine and voters in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District value their independence, but they also value fairness and playing by the rules," Terry said in a statement on Friday. "If Nebraska’s Republican Governor and Republican-controlled Legislature were to change their electoral system this late in the cycle in order to unfairly award Donald Trump an additional electoral vote, I think the Maine Legislature would be compelled to act in order to restore fairness to our country’s electoral system. It is my hope and the hope of my colleagues in Maine that the Nebraska Republican Party decides not to make this desperate and ill-fated attempt to sway the 2024 election.”
An initial effort in Nebraska's legislature to change the system failed, but Pillen has floated the idea of a special legislative session to consider the issue.
It would also likely take a special session of the Maine Legislature to change the law. But the chances of that happening this year are unclear.
It would take a majority vote from each of the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate to call lawmakers back into special session. Republicans appear unlikely to go along with a change that could reduce their presumptive presidential nominee's electoral count, even if only by one.
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, could also call the Legislature back into session. But Mills' office did not response to a request for comment on Friday about Terry's comment.
