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. In 2020, this unusual allocation of electoral votes meant that Nebraska voters gave their Second Congressional District vote to President Biden. In the 2022 election, this vote was in the radical rightwing’s crosshairs. 

Pro-democracy lawmakers in Nebraska could not afford to lose a single seat. Their 17 seats were at the exact threshold for preventing a supermajority with the power to  block emergency policies — such as attempting to reallocate electoral votes after the election — from being enacted.

The States Project helped prevent a rightwing supermajority in our first year in Nebraska.

• 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.