LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A bill to make Nebraska’s method of awarding presidential electoral votes a winner-take-all system failed to survive a filibuster Tuesday after two Republican lawmakers broke with their own party.
The bill’s failure preserves the Omaha area’s “blue dot” congressional district that has seen its electoral vote — one of Nebraska’s five — go to Democratic candidates in three of the past five presidential elections.
Republican Sen. Merv Riepe, of Ralston, followed through on his promise not to support the winner-take-all proposal, despite a full-court press by Gov. Jim Pillen to apply public pressure on him. That included a written statement from the governor on Monday for Riepe to stand “with his fellow Republicans on this critical issue.” Pillen also highlighted Riepe’s prior votes over the years to support a change to winner-take-all.
But Riepe, whose legislative district is almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, reiterated that the winner-take-all system is “a poison pill for my district.” Riepe faces reelection next year if he decides to run for another term.
“The voters in my district, in particular, are overwhelmingly in support of keeping the existing system,” Riepe said ahead of the vote. “As of this morning, I had 135 people from my district who called in. Of them, nine supported winner-take-all, and opponents were 126.”
Republican Sen. Dave Wordekemper, a freshman lawmaker whose eastern Nebraska district partly lies in the 2nd Congressional District, also voted against ending debate on the bill, saying that 75 percent of the messages sent to his office from constituents called to keep the split vote system.
Nebraska and Maine are the only states that split their electoral votes by congressional district, and both have done so in recent presidential elections.
In Nebraska, the system has confounded Republicans. Barack Obama became the first presidential contender to shave off one of the state’s five electoral votes in 2008. It happened a second time in 2020, when Joe Biden won it, and again last year for then-Vice President Kamala Harris, even though Republican President Donald Trump won the rest of the state.
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.
So far, they’ve been unable to do so. That’s largely because the state’s unique, one-chamber Legislature made up of 49 lawmakers requires a supermajority to defeat the inevitable filibuster. Republicans in the officially nonpartisan Legislature currently hold 33 seats — the exact number needed for a supermajority. But objections from Riepe and Wordekemper tanked the latest winner-take-all effort.
The governor’s push for winner-take-all appears to stem from a desire to appease Trump, whom Pillen has routinely cited in his push for the change.
The 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 even conservative Nebraskans have pushed back against the governor’s call for a winner-take-all system. The chair of the Republican Party in a western Nebraska county testified against the bill in a committee hearing earlier this year, saying he fears 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.
Pillen himself was taken aback last month when a large crowd at his townhall meeting in far-western Nebraska’s Scotts Bluff County — which voted nearly 2-to-1 for Trump in 2024 — loudly shouted down his call for winner-take-all.
Tuesday’s vote means winner-take-all is dead for the session, Speaker of the Legislature John Arch confirmed. Another measure — which would put it to a vote — advanced out of committee last month, but was not prioritized by its sponsor. Arch said Tuesday that he will not schedule any measure for debate that does not have a priority designation, adding, “We’ve got a lot of other bills to get to before the end of the session.”
That proposed constitutional amendment could come up again next year. If passed, it would put the question of whether to make Nebraska a winner-take-all state on the 2026 general election ballot.
Story by Margery A. Beck, Associated Press
