Republicans and Democrats are watching a purple congressional district in the otherwise crimson state of Nebraska in the run-up to the state’s party primary elections on Tuesday, May 14.
Rep. Don Bacon is the Republican incumbent for Nebraska Congressional District 2. He has represented the district, which includes Omaha, the state’s largest city, since 2017.
While Mr. Bacon defeated a Democratic challenger in 2020, the district gave its Electoral College vote to President Joe Biden, contradicting the rest of the state, whose other four votes went to President Donald Trump.
Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll released on May 13, the day before the primary, President Biden may need that vote again this election cycle.
Nebraska and Maine are the only states that award Electoral College votes proportionally. Under Nebraska election rules, the overall winner receives two of the state’s five electoral votes. One each of the three remaining votes is given to the winner of each District.
Nebraska began the practice in 1996. Since then, it has split its vote twice: in 2008 and 2020. Both times the Second District supported the Democrat candidate.
In the race for the White House, that vote could make all the difference this November.
Even if President Trump were to win all the states he carried in 2020 and flip Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, he would still be two votes shy of the 270 required to win the election. But Nebraska’s fifth vote would produce a 269–269 tie, leaving the outcome to the U.S. House to decide.
In 2020, District 2 was a lone blue spot in the Nebraskan sea of red, giving President Biden that vote.
The New York Times/Siena College poll released May 13 shows President Biden trailing in five key states and tied in a sixth.
The pair are tied in Wisconsin with 38 percent each, the poll states.
Between April 28, 2024, and May 9, 2024, telephone pollsters questioned 4,097 registered voters about whom they would vote for if the election were held today. The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Siena College conducted the telephone poll.
Nebraska Republicans, concerned that 2024 could be a replay of 2020, attempted to change Nebraska into a “winner-take-all” state. The nonpartisan unicameral legislature considered the legislation, pushed by Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, but did not pass the bill.
In a post on the social media site “X,” Mr. Pillen vowed to continue pushing for the law.
“I look forward to partnering with legislative leaders to move it forward in a special session, when there is sufficient support in the Legislature to pass it,” he wrote.
State Sen. Loren Lippincott initially sponsored the bill.
State Sen. Julie Slama attached it as an amendment to an existing bill, hoping for a vote. But her fellow senators refused to pass the legislation although there has been broad support for the concept. But even most Republicans were unwilling to change the state’s electoral vote system at this time.
Ms. Slama vented her frustration on X.
“The ‘filibuster-proof’ majority doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to make Nebraska a Winner-Take-All state in an election year. Wild,” she wrote.
Mr. Bacon is expected to get the Republican nomination over the challenger, Dan Frei. A businessman and former U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter pilot, Mr. Frei is considered the more conservative of the two.
On his campaign website, he describes himself as a pro-life candidate who will put America’s interests first.
Mr. Frei’s positions go down well with voters in Nebraska’s more rural Districts 1 and 3. The smaller, more densely populated District 2 contains the state’s largest city, Omaha. As with cities in other red states, Omaha and its environs tend to be bluer than their neighbors.
Mr. Bacon’s more moderate positions are expected to help him appeal to voters in what is considered Nebraska’s swing district.
If Mr. Bacon wins on Tuesday, he will face Democratic state Sen. Tony Vargas. Mr. Bacon narrowly beat Mr. Vargas in 2022, taking 51.3 percent of the vote.
Mr. Vargas has no opponent in the Democratic primary.
