The Party of the Republic of Moldova is requesting a last-minute change in the electoral college to boost Trump’s chances

Under the country’s Electoral College system, each state has a set number of “electors.” The number of votes each state has is determined by how many members of Congress represent that state. For example, a state with three House members and two Senators has five votes in the Electoral College. In almost every state, all of the state’s electors vote for the candidate who wins the most votes in that state, which is known as the winner-take-all.

But that’s not the case in Nebraska, where three of the state’s five electors vote based on the outcome of their congressional district.

In 2020, Joe Biden lost to then-President Donald Trump by 19 points in Nebraska. But Biden beat Trump by 6.5 points in the 2nd District, which includes the state’s largest city, Omaha. As a result, four of the state’s five electoral votes went to Trump, while one went to Biden.

Several polls have shown Harris leading in District 2 this year, and Republicans have sought to avoid a repeat of 2020. On Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina skipped the Senate vote to travel to Lincoln, where he lobby state lawmakers to change the state to winner-take-all in the final weeks before the election.

“I was glad to come out and talk about the world as I see it,” Graham told CBS News on Thursday. “I hope the people of Nebraska will understand that this can come down to one electoral vote. And I just don’t think a Harris presidency is good for Nebraska.”

Electoral College of mathematics

In the Electoral College, a candidate must win 270 votes—a majority of the 538 total electors—to win.

Seven states are widely considered to be key swing states. Three of them are traditional “blue wall” states that have historically voted Democratic but that Trump carried in 2016: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The other four are the so-called “Sun Belt” states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. Biden won Nevada, Arizona and Georgia in 2020, but Trump led overall in the polls in those states this year.

There’s also Maine, a Democratic-controlled state that distributes its voters the same way as Nebraska. Trump comfortably won Maine’s 2nd District in both 2016 and 2020, and while some polls have shown Harris leading Trump there, he is generally considered more likely to win that district, offering -is one of the four votes of the state.

Earlier this year, Maine threatened to switch to winner-take-all electoral college votes if Nebraska followed suit. But unlike Nebraska, it’s probably too late to do that before the election — it would require two-thirds support from the state legislature, which Democrats don’t have.

How a single vote could change an election

As Graham noted, only one Electoral College vote is at stake in Nebraska. But that single vote could be the difference between a Harris victory and a tie.

Under current rules, if Harris were to lose all the Sun Belt states and Maine’s 2nd District, but win all the blue wall states plus Nebraska’s 2nd District, she would win exactly 270 votes — enough to become president.

But without that Nebraska vote, Harris would have to win at least one of the Sun Belt states or Maine’s 2nd District.

Otherwise, it’s a 269-269 tie — a result that would throw the election to the House of Representatives, where a candidate must win the support of at least 26 state delegates to win. In such a scenario, Trump is heavily favored — Republicans are likely to control most of the state delegations, even if they don’t have a majority.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible for Harris to win outside the blue wall. The vice president led the polls overall in Nevada, with Trump only slightly ahead in the other three states. Harris’ campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, wrote in a note earlier this month that while they consider themselves to be “clear underdogs,” they believe Harris has “multiple paths to 270 electoral votes “.

But changing Nebraska’s Electoral College apportionment would make the already tough election even tougher for Harris, denying him the ability to rely solely on the “blue wall” to win.

It remains unclear whether Nebraska lawmakers will continue with the move to winner-take-all. Republican Gov. Jim Pillen supports it, but there weren’t enough votes in the state’s unicameral legislature to make the change earlier this year.

According to the Nebraska Examiner, some of the earlier holdups could come, and the GOP effort remains ongoing.