Why Trump's wild new scheme to win an extra electoral vote won't work

In Nebraska on Tuesday, two dozen state senators met with Gov. Jim Pillen as part of what may be the cycle’s most unlikely scheme to save Donald Trump. The plot drew in Trump’s most sycophantic sycophant, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and is part of a national effort to steal away just one potential electoral vote from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Unlike most states, Nebraska doesn’t award all its electoral votes to the candidate who takes the most votes in the state. Instead, it awards two votes to the state’s popular-vote winner and then one to the winner of each of its three congressional districts. Nebraska has been that way since 1991, when a Nebraska state senator heard about the idea, thought it sounded fairer than the winner-take-all approach, and was “jazzed” enough to draft legislation that narrowly passed the Nebraska legislature.

Now Republicans are trying to change those rules at the last minute in hopes that this will snatch victory from Harris and restore Trump to the White House. But not only is this extremely unlikely to make a difference in the overall race, it would set off a waiting trap that would cost Trump at least as much as he gained.