OMAHA, Nebraska (AP) — Terri Sanders was among dozens of voters who gathered to pick up campaign signs Tuesday afternoon at a Democratic event in north Omaha.
“I haven’t seen outreach like this in a long time,” the 67-year-old CEO of an African-American newspaper said of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ campaign in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Omaha. “Not since Obama.”
The honking cars and pulsating music were just a small indication of the energy Harris and the Democrats are pouring into winning a single vote in the Electoral College, thanks to a quirky formula that distributes Nebraska’s five electoral votes based on votes in separate districts in an otherwise generally Republican state.
In a national race that seems exceptionally close by any current standard, a single tiny electoral vote could provide the margin of victory. So the Democrats have planted a big flag.
Harris and Democratic groups have spent more than $5 million in the district since she entered the race on July 23, and have reserved more than $6 million in advertising time through Election Day, Nov. 5, according to media tracking firm AdImpact. By contrast, former President Donald Trump’s campaign had spent only about $95,000 on ads in the state, and had reserved about $6,800 through Nov. 5.
Trump and Republican allies sought a different route to victory, convincing the state’s Republican-dominated legislature to rewrite the rules and make Nebraska a winner-take-all race instead of allocating Electoral College votes by congressional district. Maine is the only other state that allocates its votes that way. (Trump won Nebraska’s district in 2016, but Joe Biden won it in 2020.)
A Republican senator in Nebraska shot down that option on Monday when he refused to bow to pressure from Trump and other Republicans to change the rules so close to the election.
Because Republican Gov. Jim Pillen did not have enough votes in Nebraska’s unicameral Legislature, he said Tuesday he would not call a special session to make the change.
In addition to the television advertising, Harris’ team has 25 paid staffers and three offices dedicated to organizing a district with a population about the size of Las Vegas and an area larger than Rhode Island but smaller than Delaware.
According to David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, it is precisely this kind of organizing that suggests Harris is using her fundraising advantage not just for advertising but also for community outreach in the district and in seven targeted states.
“The fact that they have the resources to compete in that district speaks to A, their focus, and B, their ability. In a close race, that can really matter,” Axelrod said. “We’re looking at marginal races in the seven states, and in some of them, that can be decisive.”
The district is a typical Midwestern micro-battleground, with its heavily Democratic urban core where the Union Pacific Railroad was born. To the south lie politically mixed inner-ring suburbs of working-class neighborhoods and several meatpacking plants, with more politically mixed suburbs to the west.
To break the tie in the race for Nebraska’s winning majority of 270 electoral college votes, Trump would need to win every Republican-held state plus Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. He would also need to win Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which he won in 2020 while losing the state altogether.
Harris would need to win all the Democratic-leaning states, including Maine, plus the three northern battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, before 2nd place in Nebraska would make the difference.
It’s far from clear what Trump has in store for him in Nebraska’s 2nd District, beyond the small amount of money spent on TV and the failed attempt to lobby Republican leader Sen. Jim McDowell of Omaha to side with the Republican majority in supporting the winner-takes-all principle.
Trump’s campaign has a campaign manager in Nebraska and a director of election integrity, staff, volunteers and offices, campaign officials said. They declined to say how many were working in the 2nd District specifically.
Campaign officials would say only that voters in Nebraska had generally heard from Trump volunteers by phone, through door-to-door campaigning and at public events, and that volunteers from across the state had called the 2nd District to help.
There has been little candidate activity.
Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance headlined a Trump fundraiser in Omaha on Aug. 21, about four days after Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz headlined a Harris campaign rally in the city. Second Lord Doug Emhoff visited Omaha in July for a small-business campaign event.
Harris’ campaign, advised by veteran Obama organizer Mitch Stewart, has prominently placed one of its three district offices on Omaha’s 24th Street, the main north-south corridor into North Omaha, the heart of the city’s black voting center.
It was near that office that Sanders picked up her sign Tuesday for the Democratic rally, where volunteers painted blue circles on white signs. They were simple symbols that you’d see everywhere in Omaha, representing Democratic-voting households in a state hemmed in by Republican red.
Sanders, CEO of the Omaha Star, Nebraska’s oldest African-American newspaper, paused before walking to her car and said, “By the way, Kamala is not acting like she has this in the bag.”
“She plays to win, in a real way,” she said, nodding. “In a real way.”
