Harris Leads in Race for Eastern Nebraska’s One Electoral Vote, Poll Finds

If Ms. Harris were to win the “blue wall” and lose the Sun Belt swing states, the single electoral vote in Greater Omaha could determine the winner of the presidential election.

Vice President Kamala Harris holds a lead over former President Donald J. Trump for the single Electoral College vote in eastern Nebraska, according to a new poll by The New York Times and Siena College, a potentially critical prize if the overall presidential contest remains on a knife’s edge.

The likely voters of Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, in Omaha and its suburbs, favor Ms. Harris over Mr. Trump, 52 percent to 43 percent, according to the poll. That makes it clear why Mr. Trump and the national Republican Party recently made a last-ditch push to persuade the Nebraska Legislature to end its system of apportioning electoral votes in part by congressional districts and adopt a winner-take-all system.

In 2020, Mr. Trump handily won the state, but Mr. Biden captured the Second Congressional District.

A single electoral vote might seem insignificant, but if Ms. Harris were to win the so-called blue wall — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where she holds slim leads — while losing the remaining battleground states, which are Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, that Nebraska electoral vote would be the difference between a 270-268 Electoral College victory for the vice president or a 269-269 tie.

In the event of a tie, the House of Representatives would determine the winner, not by raw votes of House members but by the support of each state delegation. With more delegations in Republican control, Mr. Trump would almost certainly win.

One man, State Senator Mike McDonnell, a Democrat-turned-Republican, blocked the push on Monday, saying he would stand with a Democratic filibuster because “now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”

Mr. McDonnell is considering a run for Omaha mayor next year, and the new poll shows why his decision was probably smart local politics. Likely voters in his congressional district favored keeping their electoral vote over switching to the winner-take-all system used in 48 states, 61 percent to 31 percent. Both college-educated and non-college-educated voters favored the status quo. Even 36 percent of Republicans — and 33 percent of Trump voters — bucked the wishes of the national party and Nebraska’s Republican governor, Jim Pillen, to favor maintaining Greater Omaha’s own elector.

Beyond the presidential race, Nebraska’s purple House district is looking more blue. In the House contest, State Senator Tony Vargas, a Democrat, is leading Don Bacon, the district’s incumbent Republican, 49 percent to 46 percent. Mr. Bacon beat Mr. Vargas in 2022 by 5,856 votes — less than three percentage points.

With the Republicans’ House majority so small, each of the roughly two dozen tossup races that remain in House contests could prove critical to deciding control of the chamber next year.

In one of the state’s two Senate contests, Dan Osborn, a union organizer and political newcomer running as an independent, is leading the Republican incumbent he is challenging, Deb Fischer, 49 percent to 38 percent, in the district. That might not be enough to prevail statewide, but the lead in the district will keep his long-shot bid competitive in a suddenly important Senate campaign and could flood the state with last-minute donations on both sides.

The other Republican incumbent, Senator Pete Ricketts, a powerful and wealthy former governor, is running in a special election to finish the remaining two years of the term vacated by Ben Sasse, who left the Senate last year to head the University of Florida.

Democrats, with an eye on raising turnout in Omaha, recruited Preston Love Jr., an esteemed civil rights leader in the city, to challenge Mr. Ricketts, who was appointed by Mr. Pillen, the governor.

Mr. Love leads Mr. Ricketts, 47 percent to 45 percent, in the Second District, according to the poll, probably not enough to make him a real challenger statewide in that special election.