| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. The question of whether Nebraska will end its Electoral College system revolves around the competition between national party interests and state interests. It appears the state may win out and retain the status quo, although it's still early in the process (via Josh Putnam). The Constitution allows states to decide how to allocate their electoral votes. Most have used winner-take-all rules, with Nebraska and Maine the only two to adopt a system in which each congressional district (three in Nebraska, two in Maine) gets a separate elector and the statewide winner gets the last two electoral votes. Maine overall leans toward Democrats, with one district that leans the other way; Nebraska is the opposite, a strong Republican state overall but with one district that leans Democratic. It's no surprise that two small states are the ones that have adopted the district system. Large states have both a partisan and a state interest in going winner-take-all. That's the way they maximize their clout: After all, candidates are more likely to care about states with lots of electoral votes. It's also the best way to help the party that wins the state, and any party that wins the state offices required to write the rules will probably like its chances at winning the state in presidential elections. But small states have a somewhat different calculus. Presidential candidates are likely to ignore them, especially if they lean strongly toward one party, as Nebraska does for Republicans. The district system gives candidates an incentive to pay at least a little attention. Sure, it's only one contested district. But Nebraska (unlike Texas or California) isn't large enough to allow the majority party to win significant clout in Washington without being competitive in November. The district system gives them something. And it only costs the majority party a single electoral vote at best. No doubt the national Republican Party would prefer that Nebraska switched back to winner-take-all, and national Democrats would prefer the same of Maine. And yet, so far at least, neither state has budged. It's possible that the current situation, with both sides risking a single vote, makes the national parties less interested in pressuring the two states, especially if they think that both would act together either way (that is, if Nebraska switched to winner-take-all, then Democrats would press Maine to follow, and vice versa). Perhaps it's evidence that U.S. politics isn't quite as nationalized, or as strongly partisan, as some of us think. I'll be watching to see how this one gets resolved. 1. Jeffrey Lazarus at the Monkey Cage on earmarks. 2. Joshua P. Darr, Jeremy Padgett and Johanna Dunaway on the media and extremist politicians. 3. The latest from Bright Line Watch on the health of U.S. democracy. 4. Alexa Mikhail talks with Christina Wolbrecht about Rush Limbaugh, women and the Republican Party. 5. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Liam Denning on Texas energy and deregulation. 6. Also at Opinion: Timothy L. O'Brien on Texas energy and climate. 7. Greg Sargent talks with Rick Perlstein about Limbaugh. 8. And Lauren Larson at Texas Monthly has curses for Senator Ted Cruz. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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