Nebraska will continue to award some of its electoral votes by congressional district after lawmakers this week rejected legislation that would have changed how the state handles presidential elections.
The bill, introduced by state Sen. Loren Lippincott, of Central City, would have brought back a winner-take-all system in which electoral votes are awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in the state. However, it didn’t get enough support to overcome a filibuster.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, said in a statement released ahead of the debate that the change to winner-take-all would “strengthen our voice in presidential elections and end the division created three decades ago by liberal partisan Democrats bent on exploiting the urban-rural divide in our state.”
However, state Sen. Merv Riepe, of Ralston, said most of the people he heard from were against the change to a winner-take-all system.
“The voters in my district in particular are overwhelmingly in support of keeping the existing system,” Riepe told the Associated Press.
How does Nebraska award Electoral College votes?
There are only two states that split their electoral votes by congressional district: Nebraska and Maine.
Both states allocate two electoral votes based on the statewide popular vote winner, then one electoral vote based on the popular vote winner in each congressional district. Nebraska has three congressional districts.
Nebraska began to use the split system ahead of the 1992 election, though Maine has had it for two decades longer, having enacted it before the 1972 election, according to 270toWin.
In 2008, Barack Obama won Nebraska’s second congressional district, the first time a Democrat won an electoral vote from the state since 1964, USA TODAY reported. Joe Biden also won it in 2020, as did Kamala Harris in 2024.
Still, no Democratic presidential candidate has won Nebraska’s statewide popular vote since 1964, when Lyndon Johnson won a lopsided election against Barry Goldwater.
How does the Electoral College work?
The U.S. elects its president using a system called the Electoral College, which grants electoral votes to all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on their population. There are 538 total electoral votes available nationwide, which means a candidate needs 270 to win.
Not every state has the same amount of electoral votes. Instead, each state gets as many as it has representatives and senators in Congress. Nebraska has five electoral votes.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Why does Nebraska split its Electoral College votes?
