The war for the first battleground electoral vote may have been decided this week before a single ballot was cast. The weapons of choice: private polls. The likely winner: Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a wild election season that has featured Democrats substituting Harris for President Joe Biden at the top of their ticket — and Republican Donald Trump surviving two assassination attempts while trying to become the first former president in modern history to avenge a loss — the story of Nebraska’s Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District is one of the most compelling subplots.
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Party operatives and political analysts are fascinated with the district because it is highly competitive turf in one of just two states — Maine is the other — that award an elector to the candidate who wins the most votes in each congressional district. With recent presidential elections turning on tens of thousands of votes spread across a few states, there are scenarios in which Nebraska’s 2nd District could determine who wins the Electoral College and the presidency.
That’s why Trump made a full-court press to get Nebraska to change its law to give all of the electors to the statewide winner — he took 58.5% statewide in 2020. But his effort came up short this week when GOP state Sen. Mike McDonnell — a former Democrat — said he would not back the plan.
As intense as the GOP lobbying effort was — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close Trump ally, traveled to the state to make the pitch for changing the law — Democrats’ counteroffensive proved more effective.
In an interview with NBC News, Jane Kleeb, chairwoman of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said she leaned on her 18-year relationship with McDonnell to lobby him. So did other Democrats and thought leaders in the state. They told McDonnell that he would have a better chance of winning a prospective bid for mayor of Omaha — a city that leans more heavily Democratic than the larger district — if he rebuffed Trump. They also pointed to the lawn signs and other symbols of enthusiasm for the Harris campaign in the city.
Spending in the district has been lopsided, according to figures from AdImpact, with Democrats doling out $6.7 million on ads in Nebraska since Harris became her party’s standard-bearer, compared with $170,000 for Republicans.
“We had an audience of one that we needed to make sure we had all of our facts and persuadable information so that as he was making his decision that he was going to stay with us,” Kleeb said.
Words were one form of persuasion. But data likely sealed the deal. McDonnell was presented with the findings of a private Democratic poll of the district that outlined just how much his chances of winning a mayoral race improved if he didn’t go along with Trump. The poll has not been released publicly, but the fact that Democratic officials tested the question suggests that he at least has an opening to turn prominent Democrats into allies if he does launch a bid to run the city.
McDonnell did not return a request for comment.
By failing to move enough legislative votes into his column, Trump lost his chance to tuck away all five of Nebraska’s electoral votes without mounting a campaign. A second private poll, conducted by Republicans and shared with NBC News by a source familiar with its findings, shows why Trump was so eager to change the rules — and why Democrats have reason to be confident about Harris’ chances of taking the 2nd District’s electoral vote.
That poll has Harris up by 9 percentage points over Trump. In 2020, Biden won the district by more than 22,000 votes — a margin greater than each of his victories in the battleground states of Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin and good enough for a spread of almost 7 percentage points.
As a result, the district isn’t seen by either camp as the most likely tipping point. If Trump wins it on Election Day, that might be a good indication that he has taken the presidency. Similarly, Harris could claim victory in the district and lose overall.
While Trump aides say they’re not writing off the district, neither he nor his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has campaigned there. And they haven’t announced any plans to do so.
For now, Democrats feel good about the odds that they will look back at this week as the moment they locked up their first electoral vote. Kleeb said the Biden camp has provided the resources needed to run a full get-out-the-vote effort through the November election and that there will be no let-up.
“Anybody in politics knows that tomorrow there could be something around the corner that shifts the race,” Kleeb said. “We don’t take anything for granted and are going to continue to talk to voters.”
Kristen Welker contributed.
