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.
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With more than $5 million in outside spending already put into the race, federal campaign finance records show the overwhelming majority of that has gone toward either opposing Cavanaugh or boosting Powell, who is a co-founder of a political group focused on women. While they are not the only contenders running in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, the cash flow suggests the contest is coming down to the two of them.
In the final stretch before primary day, the leader of the Nebraska Democratic Party publicly condemned a shadowy group called Lead Left, alleging in a statement that “Republicans are creating fake ‘progressive’ PACs and lying about Democratic candidates to meddle in the outcome of our primaries.” An ad from Lead Left said “Cavanaugh betrayed Nebraska Democrats” and tried to associate him with Trump’s political movement — despite the state senator being an avowed Democrat who has the support of the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ campaign arm.
“I have a record of actually following through, on doing the things that I say I’m going to do,” Cavanaugh told MS NOW. “The ultrawealthy in this country benefit from the status quo, and the status quo works for them but doesn’t work for the vast majority of Americans. And so I represent an actual change, an actual opportunity at reform, an actual opportunity at holding them accountable, and Donald Trump accountable. And that scares them.”
Republicans’ pick to maintain the GOP’s hold on the seat is Omaha City Councilman Brinker Harding, who has Trump’s endorsement. Harding called attention to the tense nature of the Democratic primary, even as the GOP faces a difficult path to keeping the seat, given the typical political gravity against the incumbent president’s party in midterm elections.
“They’re campaigning on their hate for the president of the United States and the idea of protecting a blue dot,” Harding said. “Well, not everyone in the 2nd District is a blue dot, and I rather would like to think of them not as some sort of a colored geometric shape, but really as the individuals and the constituents that need representation.”
Even the party’s own candidates admit that Democrats’ standing in Nebraska isn’t exactly sterling with some voters. Powell conceded that there’s some truth to the party’s sometimes problematic brand in her part of the country, and she urged Democrats “to be a little bit more inclusive and all-encompassing,” noting that she’s encountered people “who don’t like what’s happening in the Republican Party, but in the past have not necessarily felt like Democrats are focusing on the right thing, either.”
The extent to which candidates can bridge that trust gap between voters and the party at large may prove decisive in the general election, even as the divide threatens to get worse before it gets better in today’s hyperpartisan environment.
“People’s, I think, problem with Democrats is that they agree with Democrats,” Cavanaugh said, “but they are not convinced that they’ll deliver.”
Hunter Woodall covers politics for MS NOW. He’s reported on politics and presidential campaigns for The Associated Press and CBS News and reported on Congress for The Minnesota Star Tribune.