Since the early 90s, the Democrats have relied on a “blue wall” around the Great Lakes states to win presidential elections. But in 2016, former President Donald Trump snagged surprise victories in Michigan and Pennsylvania and won the White House.
Now Democrats have a new plan: Target the Midwest.
Ahead of this year’s election, because of population shifts, Michigan and Pennsylvania have each lost a vote in the Electoral College. “The Democratic Party’s blue wall around the Great Lakes has sprung a leak since the 2020 Census,” The Washington Post announced in a panicked lede.
So to win the electoral college, the Democrats are turning to… Nebraska.
In Nebraska, a presidential candidate can win an electoral vote just by winning a congressional district. He or she doesn’t need to win the entire state.
Nebraska remains only one of two states to use the district-by-district model. The remaining 48 states use the winner-take-all model.
In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won a congressional district in Nebraska, and so he got an additional vote in the Electoral College.
Smelling blood in the water, the Democrats have rushed into Nebraska’s second congressional district, which encompasses Omaha and some of its suburbs, to flip it blue.
“Omaha is now Joe-maha,” the Nebraska Democratic Party chair said in 2020.
Democrats hope NE-02 will plug the leak in their blue wall.
“The industrial north strategy — the old blue wall that held even for Al Gore and John Kerry when they lost — you now need Nebraska-2 to make that math work,” Kyle Kondik of University of Virginia’s Center for Politics told the Post.
However, the Democrats may see their plan fail. In the 21st century, they’ve won the district only twice, once with Biden and another time with Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Republicans remain competitive in the district. Don Bacon, a Republican, currently represents NE-02 in the House.
Meanwhile, the GOP has successfully used the Democrats’ strategy in a different state. In 2016, Trump won a congressional district in Maine, the only other state with the district-by-district approach to awarding electoral votes.
Trump’s Super PAC has embraced the strategy, and it’s looking to unlikely places for electoral votes.
“Every electoral vote is in play because there isn’t a voter in America who is better off today than they were under President Trump,” Taylor Budowich, CEO of the MAGA Inc. PAC, told the paper.
In 2020, the Preserve America PAC reportedly spent more than $1.9 million to support Trump in the district, while the Biden campaign spent $2.6 million.
Nebraska’s secretary of state supports switching to the winner-take-all model, and one state senator introduced a bill to adopt it. However, the Nebraska legislature is facing time constraints, and it looks unlikely to pass the bill before adjourning in April.
In other words, Nebraska may be heading for another electoral-vote split — a rare, expensive occurrence.
Take a look at this flashback from the last election —
“Omaha is now Joe-maha,” said the Party Chair who was losing 59–39.
The NYT. pic.twitter.com/JMJLRMJ65T
— security guard using work printer for personal use (@isomorphisms) November 4, 2020
The Horn editorial team