During the last presidential election, a “blue dot” in Nebraska held a glimmer of hope on an otherwise rough night for Democrats. Even as then-Vice President Kamala Harris lost every battleground state around the country, she won Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, giving Democrats a lone electoral vote in the red state.
Yet that success at the top of the ticket didn’t help Democrats there defeat incumbent Republican Rep. Don Bacon, costing the party control of an Omaha-based district critical to the narrow majority the GOP has relied on during President Donald Trump’s second term in Washington. The seat is one of just a handful that Harris won in 2024 that is currently represented by a Republican.
This fall, as Bacon prepares to retire, Democrats see their best chance in years to win the seat.
“The blessing, and now the curse, for Republicans in CD-2 is that Don Bacon was a unicorn, in that he could effectively win the seat as a conservative Republican,” said Perre Neilan, a political consultant and former executive director of the Nebraska Republican Party.
First, Democratic voters have to make their pick in a fierce primary contest that could not only influence control of the House, but also prove an inflection point for the fate of the blue dot, and whether the state keeps its unusual approach to electoral votes in 2028.
Nebraska is one of just two states where a presidential candidate can lose statewide but still get an electoral vote by winning a congressional district. In recent years, some Republicans have appeared eager to try to cut off Democrats from the opportunity, and it’s not hard to see why. While a single electoral vote may not seem enormously influential, one scenario gamed out in 2024 made a Harris win hinge on a victory in the Omaha-based Nebraska district.
Fears have resurfaced that the blue dot may soon be on death watch again, with inadvertent help from Democrats.
That prospect has become a sharp line of attack against the candidacy of Democrat John Cavanaugh, a state senator whose replacement in the state Capitol, should he win Bacon’s seat, would be chosen by Nebraska’s Republican governor.
“Nebraska has that blue dot that we’re really proud of, that we fought like hell to protect in 2024, and I know that’s something that’s weighing on a lot of people’s minds as they think about who they’re going to support,” said Denise Powell, a Democratic candidate running against Cavanaugh in Tuesday’s primary.
Cavanaugh has said that with a pack of legislative seats on the ballot this year, Democrats could pick up enough seats to counteract any Republican replacement, and that if the groups spending against him “actually cared about that issue, they would be spending money helping those legislative races.”
In a Midwestern state where Democrats are hungry for relevance, the issue has become the through line for discord over money in politics, electability and how to earn back public trust.








