Nebraska State Democrat Senator Changes Parties - Gives Republicans Two-Thirds Majority

The Nebraska Senate now has a 2/3rds (33 seats to 15 Democrats and 1 Independent Democrat) Republican majority after Democrat Mike McDonnell announced he is switching parties. 

According to Newsweek:

Nebraska state senator on Wednesday announced that he is leaving the Democrats and joining the GOP, a move that could help the state change its election laws to favor former President Donald Trump.

State Senator Mike McDonnell told reporters on Wednesday, "Today I'm announcing, I am now going to be a registered Republican in the state of Nebraska," after being a Democrat since 1984.

McDonnell cited abortion as a major reason why he was switching parties, as he was the only Democrat that supported a bill that would’ve banned nearly all abortions in the state (which didn’t pass). He was also the only Democrat to vote in favor of a bill that banned doctors from providing transgender drugs and surgeries to minors, which was passed and signed into law. The Democrat Party of Douglas County stripped him of his voting rights on internal matters within the country party as a result, and he faced a censure from the Democrat Party of Nebraska.  

Watch his announcement below:

He was a registered Democrat for 40-years before the switch this week.

This amounts to a major win for Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 election, because there’s currently a debate over giving Nebraska “winner take-all” status in the electoral college in their legislature. Maine and Nebraska are the only states in the U.S. that have split electoral votes. In the 2020 presidential election Trump won the state of Nebraska by a nearly 60-40 margin, but Biden still won one electoral college vote to Trump’s five. 

The Governor of Nebraska voiced his support for a “winner-take-all” system the day before McDonnell announced his departure, and said he’d sign any such bill that reaches his desk. 

Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros

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