Worth only one electoral vote, you’d be forgiven for wondering why Nebraska’s Second Congressional District is receiving a full presidential election write up from us. But this relatively small addition to the map may be among the most important: a path to a Harris victory that relies on going through Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (if she falls short in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina) delivers only 269 electoral votes – Nebraska’s Second Congressional District could genuinely be the thing that gives her the 270 she would need to win.

Nebraska, like Maine, awards its Electoral College votes both statewide and by congressional district. So, whoever wins a plurality of the vote in the state receives two electoral votes, and whoever wins the popular vote in each of the three congressional districts wins them separately. In elections like 2008 and 2020, Nebraska’s Second District cast a majority of its vote differently than the state, awarding Democrats a single electoral vote in each election. 

The reason why is pretty clear – the district contains the city of Omaha, the largest city in the state, and a Democratic-leaning stronghold in an ocean of the otherwise reliably Republican plains. Over the course of the last decade, as the Democratic coalition broadened beyond urban centers and into the high-education, high-turnout suburbs, this district became increasingly competitive and is now more clearly in the Democratic-leaning column. In 2020, it was about two points to the left of the nation. It’s subsequently been redistricted, and there were some attempts to dilute Democratic votes by splitting up Douglas County (which contains Omaha), but these efforts only gave way to a slight adjustment. In the end, the Second District lost parts of Sarpy County (R+15 in 2020) but added Saunders County (R+50 in 2020). Ostensibly, this should make the district redder – but did it?

Our only real indication so far is the 2022 midterm. Incumbent Republican Don Bacon, who has represented the district since 2017, won reelection, but only by about 2.7% against the Democrat, Tony Vargas. Sure, Bacon survived the blue wave in 2018 and even being on the same ballot as Biden in 2020, but in 2022, where the national environment leaned Republican by 2.8%, Bacon barely held even – a pretty interesting underperformance for the incumbent. I don’t know if the district necessarily became bluer (Bacon may have underperformed a bit because he now faced an electorate who didn’t know him as well), but it certainly didn’t get redder. Subsequent analysis has confirmed that the voter demographics in the 2020 district and the one that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will face off in now are “relatively the same.” If it was already a blue-leaning district, that’s good news for Harris.

There is, however, reason to assume that Democratic margins may continue to improve in the district. Shifting demographics and continued growth in the Omaha-based Second District has nudged Nebraska leftward over the years – notably making the state one of only three in the Midwest to have become more Democratic in the 21st century, even as the state at large still heavily favors Republicans – and even with the redistricting, there are statewide trends to support this too. Democrats in the state have gotten more clever, even tepidly backing an independent for the Senate this cycle instead of running one of their own. The fact that the race seems close is a sign that Nebraska voters aren’t so much opposed to an alternative to Republicans, they’re just wary of the Democratic brand. Perhaps moderate voters are wary of the Republican brand too, as the state party was taken over by far-right Republicans in 2022 who have spent their time since badmouthing their own party’s incumbents – including Don Bacon and former governor and now-Senator Pete Ricketts – and endorsing their primary opponents. This Republican infighting may leave a sour taste in many of the moderate voters making up Bacon’s district, and it’s certainly devoted time and resources away from going after Democrats (Bacon is now down in some polls).

Furthermore, the Harris campaign seems more committed to winning the single electoral vote than Trump’s does. Tim Walz, Harris’ vice presidential running mate, is a native son of Nebraska, and has been dispatched to the district (as has Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband). Don’t be surprised if you see a stop by Harris herself, or even Trump, in the weeks to come – signaling just how valuable one single electoral vote may be in this race – but the efforts by Democrats to show up (and show up early) aren’t going unnoticed.

And, this cycle, abortion will be on the ballot in Nebraska. Actually, it will be on the ballot twice. There are competing ballot measures, one of which expands abortion rights by enshrining them in the state constitution up to the point of viability (or later, when needed to protect the health of the mother) and the other constitutionalizes the existing 12-week ban (with some exceptions). Given that a majority of Nebraskans seem to favor a right to an abortion, this could juice turnout and maybe bring out some more high-propensity voters that Harris will need in the Second District. Democrats in the state have approached the issue strategically – not without their own internal tensions – but as the parties retreat to the more extreme positions on the issue, it seems likely that the pro-choice electorate in the second district (and statewide) will give Democrats a slight edge.

This all leaves the single electoral vote clearly leaning towards Harris. Instead, what wrinkles may emerge are largely administrative. Nebraska legislators have mulled over changing their system to simply award all electoral votes to the statewide winner, in an effort to hand the vote to Trump and take it off the map. These conversations died down a few months ago but have begun simmering back to the surface as Harris became the nominee and Trump started to slip nationally. Back in April, the rumors of this blatantly partisan proposal inspired Democratic-leaning Maine to threaten to do the same, thus negating the effect by taking Maine’s Second Congressional District off the table for Trump. If this conversation comes back to the fore in Nebraska, expect a game of electoral brinkmanship over two electoral votes separated by 1,500 miles to become the wonkish obsession of politicos – the fact that one, or both, could make the difference between President Trump or President Harris shows how small the margin for error is.