A pro-Trump pastor from Nebraska wants to change the Electoral College to help former President Donald Trump.
Conservatives have pushed for Nebraska, a safely Republican state, to change the way it counts its Electoral College votes ahead of the 2024 presidential election, in which President Joe Biden is expected to face off against Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee.
While most states use a winner-takes-all electoral system, in which the candidate who wins the state wins all of its electoral votes, Nebraska and Maine distribute some of their votes by congressional district. The winning candidate receives two votes for their statewide victory, as well as one vote for each congressional district they carry.
When Trump won Nebraska in 2020, he received four of its five Electoral College votes, as Biden carried the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District, which has trended toward Democrats in recent years, though it remains represented by GOP Representative Don Bacon in Congress.
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If the Legislature were to change to a winner-takes-all system, Trump would benefit as the Biden campaign would not focus on Nebraska, a reliably conservative state.
The effort suffered a blow on Monday, when John Arch, speaker of the state Legislature, said lawmakers would not take a vote on the matter, according to a report by the ABC-affiliated Nebraska Television Network.
However, one pastor advised his congregation to get involved in efforts to change the way Nebraska counts its electoral votes.
Hank Kunneman, the pastor of Lord of Hosts Church in Omaha who previously made pro-Trump remarks, discussed how his church’s members could call local legislators to pressure them to support changing the electoral vote allocation during a sermon on Wednesday, along with the church’s social media manager, Terri Blackburn, who has experience in local Republican politics.
While Blackburn explained the matter to the congregation, Kunneman urged the church to get involved and asked Blackburn to give them a message to tell their legislators.
“The way that Nebraska has their Electoral College set up right is it dilutes the voices of people here in Nebraska,” Blackburn said. “In 2020, Donald Trump, according to their numbers, won the state of Nebraska by over 180,000 votes. But yet CD2 somehow went to Biden. We’re diluting the votes of those in Nebraska. The will of Nebraskans was not heard.”
Kunneman urged viewers across the United States to “call” Nebraska legislators and acted out an example of how to call on the issue with Blackburn.
“You can go and play the playback of what she did, and you can put it in your own words, but you have all the information,” he said.
Meanwhile, a conservative organization is set to hold a “Win Every Vote Rally” at the church on April 9 that will feature Charlie Kirk, founder and president of the conservative organization Turning Point USA, who has raised the issue of Nebraska’s electoral vote count.
A clip of the speech was posted to X, formerly Twitter, by the organization Right Wing Watch, prompting calls for the church to have its nonprofit status revoked for weighing in on a political issue. The video has been viewed more than 15,000 times by Friday afternoon.
“IRS this churches tax exempt status needs to be pulled!” wrote the X account @SAlvernaz37936.
“Tax the churches,” responded Eric Kleefeld, a writer at the liberal-leaning Media Matters for America.
Churches are barred from engaging in certain political activities to maintain their status as tax-exempt nonprofits. While pastors are allowed to discuss political issues at the pulpit, churches may not endorse or donate to specific candidates.
Newsweek reached out to Lord of Hosts Church for comment via its online contact form.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.