Nebraska Democrats split over blue dot risk before Tuesday primary

A Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) has divided the party in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, with the front-runners trading attacks over whether one candidate’s election to Congress would imperil the state’s lone Democratic electoral vote. Voters head to the polls Tuesday.

State Sen. John Cavanaugh and political action committee operator Denise Powell lead a six-Democrat field competing for Bacon’s open seat, which covers Omaha and surrounding eastern Nebraska. Bacon, one of three House Republicans who held a district carried by Kamala Harris in 2024, announced his retirement earlier this year. The contest sits inside a broader 2026 fight over House control, with mid-cycle redistricting in Florida, Tennessee and California reshaping the chamber’s likely composition.

The race has drawn more than $6 million in outside advertising, according to AdImpact, with two progressive super PACs spending more than $1 million on Omaha airwaves to support Powell. Their argument: should Cavanaugh win the primary and the November election, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen would appoint his successor in the state legislature, removing a vote that has helped block efforts to scrap Nebraska’s split electoral-vote system.

“We have fought so hard for fair representation, our Blue Dot, and to retain that electoral power,” Powell said in a statement Friday. “We cannot afford a candidate whose campaign hands Republicans the votes to gerrymander us into oblivion.”

Cavanaugh has rejected the framing as a “Republican talking point,” dubbing his opponent “Dark Money Denise” in television advertising. Six fellow state senators signed an open letter last month backing him. “We stand with John Cavanaugh because we can protect the Blue Dot and existing abortion access, while sending a strong, experienced legislator to Congress,” they wrote. “It is disingenuous to boil the fate of Nebraskans down to one person.”

Nebraska and Maine are the only states that allocate Electoral College votes by congressional district rather than statewide winner-take-all. Donald Trump captured four of Nebraska’s five electoral votes in 2020, with Joe Biden taking NE-02. President Trump and his allies tried to convince Nebraska Republican lawmakers to change the law before the 2024 election, but Pillen failed to muster the votes. Cavanaugh was among the legislators who held the line.

Nebraska’s unicameral legislature has a 33-seat Republican supermajority and 16 Democratic-aligned senators. Cavanaugh’s campaign argues that even if he resigns to enter Congress, Democrats are likely to pick up enough seats in November to keep the blue dot intact.

Also on the Democratic ballot are Douglas County District Court Clerk Crystal Rhoades, who first raised the electoral-vote concern; Navy veteran Kishla Askins; democratic socialist Melanie Williams; and former immigration attorney Evangelos Argyrakis. Powell, a co-founder of Women Who Run Nebraska, has been endorsed by the Nebraska Congressional Black Caucus and Emily’s List. Cavanaugh’s father held the same House seat from 1977 to 1981; his sister, Machaela, serves in the state legislature.

The Republican nomination is uncontested. Omaha city councilman Brinker Harding is running unopposed.

The Nebraska contest follows Trump’s purge of Indiana Republican legislators and the California Republican incumbents now turning on each other, as both parties battle for control of the U.S. House before November 3.