‘Nightmare scenario’: How obscure rule change could lead to a tie between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

An obscure rule has come to the fore in the United States, making the prospect of a tie between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris more likely.

Buckle up. We’re about to get nerdy.

We have written before about the peculiarities of America’s electoral system. When the country elects its president, it isn’t holding one massive national election. It is, in fact, holding 50 separate statewide elections.

Technically, it doesn’t matter which candidate earns more votes in total, as Hillary Clinton discovered to her dismay in 2016, when she lost to Donald Trump even though three million more Americans voted for her.

The candidates are actually competing to win the popular vote in each individual state, which earns them all of the state’s electoral votes. You need 270 electoral votes to win the election.

That’s complicated enough already. But it gets worse, because two of America’s 50 states decided, long ago, to be different.

Nebraska, in the country’s rural midwest, and Maine, in its northeast, do not give all their electoral votes to the winner of the statewide tally. Both states reserve a single electoral vote for whoever wins a specific congressional district.

The Republican candidate always wins deep-red Nebraska, but the Democrat always wins the solitary electoral vote from its congressional district. The opposite is true in Maine: Democrats pretty much always win the state, but its congressional district tends to go Republican.

So this peculiarity in the system has never really influenced the outcome of an election; the two states cancel each other out.

The 2020 election results. Note the blue and red number ones in Nebraska and Maine, respectively: these represent the results in those states' isolated congressional districts. Picture: 270toWin

That could change this time, if Mr Trump gets his way.

Allies of the former president, who is once again the Republican Party’s nominee, have been pushing, in recent weeks, for Nebraska to change its election rules at the last minute to make it a winner-takes-all state, like most of the rest of the country.

So far they have been stymied, but the effort has not been entirely defeated. And here’s the key point: should Nebraska change its system, it is too late, under Maine’s state laws, for it to do the same.

That would lead to Mr Trump earning one more electoral vote than he otherwise would have, and his opponent, Kamala Harris, earning one fewer.

How much can a single electoral vote matter, you may wonder. Quite a lot, it transpires.

Donald Trump. Picture: Chandan Khanna/AFP

Kamala Harris. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

Most American states are either solidly Democratic or solidly Republican. Only a handful – fewer than a dozen – could genuinely vote either way on November 5.

As things stand, Ms Harris can reach the 270 electoral vote threshold required for victory if she wins a combination of just three key states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. That would get to her exactly 270, and it’s her likeliest path.

Say Mr Trump’s push in Nebraska succeeded. Then those states would only get his opponent to 269, a single electoral vote short of victory. Ms Harris would need to win an additional and harder state, such as Georgia, Arizona or Nevada.

The candidates’ nightmare scenario – or the scenario that would spur you to get the popcorn out, if you’re the sort of person who loves drama – is a tied election, with Mr Trump and Ms Harris both earning 269 electoral votes.

One quite plausible scenario, as things stand, would see Ms Harris earn exactly 270 electoral votes. Picture: 270toWin

That is currently a pretty outlandish prospect, but a change to Nebraska’s rules would push it into the realm of the possible.

What happens if the election is a tie? You will be happy to learn that it is delightfully, unnecessarily complicated! In that situation, the lower chamber of Congress, the House of Representatives, chooses the president.

But it’s not a straightforward vote of every member of Congress. Instead each state delegation – composed of every member from a given state – gets one vote.

The Republicans currently control the House with a narrow majority, and they also control a majority of the state delegations, with 26 to the Democrats’ 22, and two states evenly split.

However! In the event of an electoral college tie, it will be the new Congress, seated in January, that elects the president. It is entirely possible that the Democrats will win back control of the House.

It is also entirely possible that they’ll have a majority of members in the House without holding a majority of the state delegations. In which case, a minority in Congress could still make Mr Trump president.

I did say it was unnecessarily complicated.

Donald Trump. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

If that all sounds like too much bother to you, there was some welcome news yesterday, with Nebraska’s Republican Governor declining to call a special legislative session to change his state’s rules.

Governor Jim Pillen said he and his colleagues had “worked relentlessly” to secure enough votes for the change, but had fallen short of the 33 they required.

“Unfortunately, we could not persuade 33 state senators,” Mr Pillen said.

“That is profoundly disappointing to me and the many others who have worked so earnestly to ensure all Nebraskans’ votes are sought after equally this election.

“Based on the lack of 33 votes, I have no plans to call a special session on this issue prior to the 2024 election.”

So the effort appears to have failed. For now, at least. No doubt lobbying will continue behind the scenes.