It’s becoming a theme: Donald Trump’s efforts to steal an election are quashed by the bravery of a few non-MAGA Republicans.
Into Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s (R) shoes stepped Nebraska Sen. Mike McDonnell (R) Monday, who said in a statement first reported by the Nebraska Examiner that he would not withdraw his support for the state divvying up its electoral votes by district.
“After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change,” he said in a statement. “I have notified Governor Pillen that I will not change my long-held position and will oppose any attempted changes to our electoral college system before the 2024 election.”
Without his support, Republicans will likely be unable to overcome Democrats’ filibuster and change the system to the more typical winner-takes-all before the election.
Trump’s camp had reignited its attempt to make this change in the past few days a) because VP Kamala Harris needs the one electoral vote from Nebraska’s second district to win if she takes the “blue wall states” (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan) but loses in the Sun Belt and b) seemingly because Maine, the only other state that distributes its electoral votes this way, had reached the point when it was constitutionally too late for state Democrats to change the law in response.
It’s unclear whether national Democrats had a plan to counter this Republican attack if it came to fruition. A spokesperson for Nebraska Democrats told TPM that “ballots have already been mailed out — it is too late to change.” The Republican secretary of state’s office had said that how the electoral votes are allocated could be changed right up to the election, but the quote suggests that Democrats may have taken legal action based on that premise.
If they didn’t have a plan, they put an awful lot of trust in the spine of one state-level Republican who was having the screws applied by everyone from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to Trump himself (okay, spine and political aspirations — McDonnell, a former Democrat, reportedly wants to run for mayor of Omaha, a much harder feat if he single-handedly deprives Omaha of its electoral relevance). Still, he’ll almost certainly face physical threats from the right for this decision, and it’s worth applauding.
For now, it’s an exhale from anti-Trump forces across the country who spent the last few nights tossing and turning, brains alight with visions of a 269-269 electoral college tie.
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