Nebraska has five electoral votes; two are assigned to the winner of the statewide vote and one to the winner of each of the state’s three congressional districts. This unusual allocation of electoral votes means that Nebraska voters gave their Second Congressional District vote to President Biden in 2020 and to Vice President Harris in 2024, while the other two congressional districts went to the rightwing.

Rightwing state lawmakers in Nebraska have worked to enact a winner-take-all system for decades. These efforts could give the right a crucial electoral vote in future presidential races.

To prevent this from happening, pro-democracy state lawmakers need to hold 17 seats — the exact threshold for preventing a supermajority with the power to change the rules of the legislature and maintain filibusters.

Half of Nebraska’s state legislative seats were up for election in 2024. The States Project invested in key races to defend the 17-seat threshold that pro-democracy lawmakers need in order to stave off rightwing bills. Unfortunately, the rightwing won the key seat by 4 points. 

With half of the legislature up for election in 2022, the minority’s current 17 seats were right at the threshold — one-third of the lawmakers in the legislature — to block emergency policies from being enacted. There was no room for error: a single seat shifting would give the rightwing a supermajority and unchecked power in the legislature. Preventing the supermajority came down to one of the tightest races we worked on in 2022 which was decided by just 41 voters.