This story first appeared in the Nebraska Examiner. LINCOLN, Neb. — The national Republican push to help former President Donald Trump win all five of Nebraska’s Electoral College votes is ramping up again,

Republican lawmakers in Nebraska didn’t have the votes needed to change the law that could help Trump win the election.

Former President Donald Trump spoke by phone Wednesday with at least one of the two dozen Republican state senators who attended Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen’s winner-take-all meeting at the Governor’s Mansion.

Donald Trump believes he will win four electoral votes from Nebraska, but it’s the fifth one that he is increasingly fretting about – leading the former president and his Republican allies to mount a last-ditch effort to try and change state election law only weeks before ballots are cast.

A single Republican state senator appears to be holding back a push by Donald J. Trump to net a potentially pivotal electoral vote even before ballots are cast.

Nebraska is one of two states that award some of its electoral votes by congressional district. A vote from the Omaha area is part of Harris’s easiest path to victory.

Republicans are stepping up their efforts to change Nebraska's electoral vote process to winner-take-all -- a move that would benefit former President Donald Trump in an expected close November election in which a single vote could make a key difference in the Electoral College.

Nebraska could deliver a critical electoral vote to Vice President Kamala Harris under its hybrid system of splitting votes in an otherwise red state.

Too late for Maine Democrats to retaliate, Nebraska Republicans may implement a winner-take-all system, swiping an electoral vote from Harris.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) met with Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and around a dozen Republican state lawmakers Wednesday as Republicans seek a last-minute change to the way the Cornhusker state allocates its electoral votes,