WI: Nebraska south of the Platte River becomes a part of Kansas?

So I was recently reading about this in a book about Nebraska history (Nebraska is my home state) and in the 1850's there was a big sectional divide between areas north and south of the Platte River. The South side had more people, but due political influence, Omaha became the capital. Anyway, a number of south siders wanted a resolution to become a part of Kansas. Even the Kansas territory was interested since they thought that they might need Nebraska south of the platte to counter pro slavery men in Kansas. However this motion wasn't even brought up in the legislature, but the rivalry continued until 1867, when Lincoln was made the State Capital.

So what if the land in Nebraska south of the platte was a part of Kansas. What would happen north of the platte. Might Omaha and northern Nebraska be a part of Dakota, or would Nebraska take over what is today SD?
 
So I was recently reading about this in a book about Nebraska history (Nebraska is my home state) and in the 1850's there was a big sectional divide between areas north and south of the Platte River. The South side had more people, but due political influence, Omaha became the capital. Anyway, a number of south siders wanted a resolution to become a part of Kansas. Even the Kansas territory was interested since they thought that they might need Nebraska south of the platte to counter pro slavery men in Kansas. However this motion wasn't even brought up in the legislature, but the rivalry continued until 1867, when Lincoln was made the State Capital.

So what if the land in Nebraska south of the platte was a part of Kansas. What would happen north of the platte. Might Omaha and northern Nebraska be a part of Dakota, or would Nebraska take over what is today SD?

Well, this is honestly an interesting question, TBH. However, though, the one thing I can say, is that it may require changing the Dakotas up a bit.

One idea is that all of OTL S.D. west of the Missouri River, and possibly a small portion of N.D. as well, could be joined with the remnants of Nebraska; this state could also be called Absaroka, or Pahasapa, Yankton(okay, I kinda stole that from the GTA series :p), or even Lincoln, perhaps.
 
It would probably require changing up the Dakotas a bit, but not too much. The Platte runs at approximately the 41st parallel north through Nebraska, so you could have Congress divide that area into thirds like they did with Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana instead of fourths like OTL.
 
It would probably require changing up the Dakotas a bit, but not too much. The Platte runs at approximately the 41st parallel north through Nebraska, so you could have Congress divide that area into thirds like they did with Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana instead of fourths like OTL.

This actually works really well. My next question would be does this affect anything by 2013? I think for Kansas it doesn't It would have more people, but not too many. Also, the only large city south of the Platte is Lincoln, and since it wouldn't be the state capital or the site of the University, or any other state institutions of that nature, it would be lucky to have 30,000-40,000 people by 2013. It would be an economic center of ATL northeast Kansas but that's it, and also it wouldn't be called Lincoln since before it became the capital it was called Lancaster (Idk if there is a lancaster Kansas in OTL).

As for Nebraska (I'll stick with the area north of the platte being called Nebraska and adding 2/3's of South Dakota, I think Omaha develops much as in OTL due to the Railroad, as well as being the largest city in the state. It won't keep the capitol though. I could see it being moved to Yankton since it was the capital in OTL Dakota Territory. It would make more sense anyway since having the Capital all the way in Omaha would not exactly be smart and potentially lead to separating. At least Yankton would be somewhat in the middle. This means that Yankton, being the Capital might be a decent sized city. Not huge by maybe between 50,000-60,000. Also, whatever city gets the state university will probably decent sized as well. Vermillion might work, though an institution further west would probably be built at some point. The only city that would be different in OTL would be Sioux Falls. Since it would only be a small city on the Minnesota border, it might only have about 50,000 people if that. The rest of Nebraska and SD develops as in OTL including the Black Hills. The only problem I see ATL Nebraska having is that the Indian reservations would make it somewhat poor. However it would have a good farm economy and the Black Hills tourism economy and even some mining.

The land north of Nebraska would be simply called Dakota and would have its capital at Bismarck as in OTL. It wouldn't be too different from today's North Dakota except for a slightly larger population.
 
One less state, might lead to different results in presidential elections.

Nebraska itself was admitted into the Union between 1864 and 1868, so conceivably the division could have an effect as early as 1876; if the northern part of Nebraska had remained a territory while the southern part joined Kansas, then Hayes could have lost two or three electoral votes and fallen behind Tilden (although the notorious corruption of this election may have negated that issue).

Assuming for the moment that this hypothetical North Nebraska state is admitted at the same time as Nebraska actually was, however, the next election in which this redivision might conceivably have had some impact beyond the trivial...there haven't been any, except possibly the 2000 election. In all other cases, the electoral college margin of victory for the winner was so large that eliminating 2 or 3 votes (which anyways would sometimes have been won by the loser) made no difference at all. In the 2000 election itself it doesn't actually change the result, technically speaking, but it does reduce Bush's margin of victory to just 2 or 3 electoral college votes, which may make the Supreme Court more wary of taking the case (it would be the second narrowest post-Civil War victory, after 1876...although it was OTL as well). That's a hypothetical, though. In the end, save for 1876, it does nothing at all.
 
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