Note: Jay Jackson is an Omaha attorney and author of “Decent Discourse: Saving Your Country by Loving Your (Wrong?) Neighbor.” He received his law degree from George Mason University School of Law and a master of laws in international law from George Washington University Law School. Before settling in Nebraska, Jay served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force for 14 years. This content first appeared Thursday, Sept. 19, on X.com and is reprinted with permission from the author.
I’m politically conservative. For me, “we the people” are best served by a small government that strives to protect individual rights, reward individual industry and ingenuity, and reinforce individual responsibility. That’s why I’m against “winner-take-all.”
First, winner-take-all dilutes the power of each citizen’s vote by a factor of three. If individual popular vote is the “purest” form of representative government, our practice of dividing its Electoral College votes among congressional districts is the next best thing.
It maintains the unique character of the districts, gives us a more prominent voice in electing the next commander-in-chief, and protects against the mob rule our founding fathers cautioned against. It would be far better for every state to be like us rather than for us to be like 48 other states. Nebraska is the one doing it right.
Second, winner-take-all is a short-sighted strategy for short-term gains. Sure, it may advantage Republicans in 2024, believing as we do that conservative policies are the best ones for our state to prosper and our people to flourish.
But what happens as Omaha and Lincoln continue to grow? What happens if Republicans continue to lose the support of growing demographics, such as people under 29 (D+32) and Black (D+61), Hispanic (D+26), and Asian (D+28) voters?
Republicans trying to take back the Blue Dot in 2024 may unwittingly turn it into a Blue Blob in 2034, canceling out conservative voices in the Panhandle.
Our congressional delegation supports winner-take-all, declaring that “our identity as Nebraskans is what unites us in a common bond,” and I agree. However, the practical implications of winner-take-all would be increased polarization and lower voter turnout.
We should just say it out loud: those who support winner-take-all do so because it increases the chances of electing a Republican president this year. That’s it. It’s not based on any conservative value or long-term benefit to the state or nation.
And even that strategy is undermined by the fact that Maine – the only other state that splits its electoral votes – has vowed to flip its (blue) state to winner-take-all to negate the impact of Nebraska’s move.)
We Republicans lost the popular vote in the 2020 presidential election by 7,059,526 votes and have struggled to gain traction in national races ever since. Maybe it’s because we say we care about character but nominate Donald Trump. We say we care about fiscal responsibility, but we skyrocket the debt. We say we are pro-life, but we fail to come up with real solutions for childhood hunger and alarming rates of infant and maternal mortality.
We may win more elections (and do more for our country and fellow Nebraskans) if we simply ensured that our deeds matched our professed values instead of changing the rules a month before an election.
This is a good time to start. If we really do believe in conservative principles, we ought to put our money where our mouth is and reject winner-take-all as a short-sighted and ill-conceived electoral scheme.
