In electoral news that might end up mattering, Nebraska’s second district (encompassing the Omaha metropolitan region on the eastern side of the state) looks to be as good as gone for Donald Trump, who narrowly won it in 2016 and who was handily beaten there in 2020. He now trails Harris 53–42 in this congressional district, and given 2020’s outcome, don’t bet on a miraculous polling miss to bail him out. (Nebraska, like Maine, allows its electoral votes to be apportioned per district, not simply awarded as a bloc to the statewide winner.)
People don’t often pay attention to voter trends in America’s Midwestern and Plains states because from a distance they all now seem to be boringly and uniformly “red” on a national presidential level. (“It’s all just Republicans, football, and agribusiness out there.”) But the Omaha region is actually a perfect illustration of what happens when the Republicans and Democrats begin exchanging elements in their national voter coalitions with one another: The suburban educated men and women who used to represent the backbone of GOP strength across many states have fled in ever-increasing numbers to the Democrats during the Age of Trump.
No wonder Team MAGA was trying desperately to change the state’s laws this year. In a transparently sleazy gambit, Trump-affiliated Republicans in Nebraska realized that (1) he was losing Omaha for sure this cycle and (2) one EV might matter, so they tried to pressure the governor to call a special session of the state house to rewrite it last month. Thankfully, the senior Republican leadership in the state — including Governor Jim Pillen but also Representative Don Bacon, who still holds the second district’s House seat for Republicans — wanted nothing to do with it. Setting aside the fact that voter backlash would have doomed Bacon in an incredibly tough race, the act itself would have been toxically bad politics both statewide and nationally, a panicked attempt to rewrite state laws for naked political advantage. It was a move more worthy of Massachusetts Democrats than anyone with a pretense to just and good governance.
Consider it a miracle that Bacon manages to keep getting reelected in this district — his quiet survival is one of the more impressive acts of keeping the respect of his constituents long after they’ve drifted away from Trump — and wish him luck in surviving his toughest race yet. I’m glad that Nebraska Republicans didn’t make his job harder for him. Donald Trump has already made it hard enough as it is.