Available Southern bachelor Senator Lindsey Graham on Wednesday traveled to Nebraska on an assignment from convicted felon former President Trump’s campaign to try to revive an effort to change the state’s Electoral College vote apportionment ahead of the November, a movement to guarantee the Omaha-area 2nd District would not go blue again that had sputtered out in the spring when Gov Jim Pillen realized he didn’t have the votes to make it happen, NBC News reports.
We’ve gone over this several times but it bears repeating: Joe Biden’s campaign had given up on Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, pinning their hopes on Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – to get to 269 EC votes. Nebraska’s 2nd District would’ve been the last one for 270, but it was an extremely fraught path and one that small-faced Trump minion Charlie Kirk and then Donald himself had began lobbying the unicameral, Republican-majority Nebraska state Senate to close off.
The momentum got sapped because of opposition from some “RINOs” and the session expired. It seemed extra dead when Maine’s top state House Democrat threatened immediate retaliation by doing the same thing by killing Trump’s surefire one extra vote in that state’s 2nd District. It was an upshot that would have guaranteed Trump a net 0 more EC votes as he won NE-2 in 2016, lost it in 2020, but went 2-for-2 in ME-2 in both of his runs. Scant polling indicates He’s probably going to win ME-2 again this year. Meanwhile Harris looks pretty solid for Nebraska’s 2nd but, as history obviously suggests he could flip it back, there’s no point in continuing to risk Maine Dems’ backlash.
And yet here’s Lindsey Graham galavanting around Nebraska anyway, urging Pillen to call a special session to get a bill passed as soon as possible, something the corn kingdom’s governor didn’t need any extra encouragement for. “As I have consistently made clear, I strongly support statewide unity and joining 48 other states by awarding all five of our electoral college votes to the presidential candidate who wins the majority of Nebraskans’ votes. As I have also made clear, I am willing to convene the Legislature for a special session to fix this 30-year-old problem before the 2024 election,” Pillen said in a statement last week. But the holdup isn’t with him, as Pillen said he’s only moving when he’s “received the concrete and public indication that 33 [state] senators would vote.”
We guess the safest bet here is that maybe Team Orange are confident that Maine Dems won’t get their shit together in time. Gov Janet Mills would also need to call a special session and we have no idea how easily they can make that happen. Being forced to react is always a disadvantage.
Still though, you have to wonder why the hell they send Lindsey Graham to Nebraska to lobby the locals to make the change with now 47 days to go until the Ragnarok. The risk coming from Maine outweighs the upside in Nebraska – hell for all we know just talking about this shit could prompt the Dems in Augusta to make the first move – even if polling says the whole thing would be a wash. Is the Trump campaign really so desperate that they’re now resorting to this tiniest bit of rigging?