Infighting risks upending chance of staggering ruby red state flip

In solidly red Nebraska lies a “blue dot” around Omaha where Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris captured the majority of the vote in the last two presidential elections, but the incumbent Republican House representative kept his seat.

Now that Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) announced his plans to not seek re-election for Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, a crowded field of Democrats has lined up to compete in Tuesday’s primary, with the hope that the winner can flip the seat blue come November.

“We're a district that is really competitive and one that has been splitting its ticket,” said Crystal Rhoades, Democratic candidate and Douglas County clerk of the district court.

“It is a really unique opportunity for the Democrats to pick this up.”

Crystal Rhoades (provided photo)

As Democrats try to take back control of the House come November, they have their sights on the Nebraska district, which the Cook Political Report now ranks as leaning slightly blue from a toss-up.

However, an onslaught of negative ads focused on the top two Democratic fundraisers in the race, Nebraska State Sen. John Cavanaugh and Denise Powell, a political consultant and small business owner, may jeopardize the party’s chances of flipping the seat come November, other Democratic candidates say.

“It needs to have the right person, the right candidate, the right strategy, because if we don't, we're not going to win it,” said Kishla Askins, a Democratic candidate who is a retired naval officer and physician's assistant.

“That is the truth from the ground that people will either not show up, or my fear is that some of the dynamic in this primary is going to actually hurt people in the general, if they get through.”

Cavanaugh said there has been "a huge number of billionaires and dark money groups funding attacks against me." A newly formed Republican super PAC spent $200,000 to run ads against Cavanaugh in the final five days before the election, according to his campaign.

Democratic PACs backing Powell have run a series of ads against Cavanaugh as well, according to Nebraska Public Media.

Cavanaugh’s campaign has released ads attacking Powell as “Dark Money Denise.”

Powell campaign did not respond to Raw Story’s requests for comment.

“My experience over 20 years of doing this is that the voters do not like it when you attack another Democrat,” said Rhoades, who is the former Douglas County Democratic Party chair.

“The Powell and Cavanaugh camps have decided not to talk about anything other than each other, and the voters are really turned off by that. It appears to be affecting their chances in a really negative way.

“I think unfortunately, if John or Denise ends up being the nominee, it's going to be very difficult for them to bring the party together because of the vitriol between the two camps.”

The Democratic nominee will need to be someone who challenges “status quo politics” in order to beat the sole Republican candidate, Brinker Harding, said Melanie Williams, a Democratic Socialist candidate.

“I guarantee that the only person who would beat this man in November is someone who is advocating for progressive policies because that's different. Otherwise, it's just two politicians up against each other and voting for lesser evils, and people just stay home for that,” Williams said.

“After Donald Trump being elected twice now, we are in a position at this time where we have to meet this moment. It's not the same as two years ago, as two years before that. This moment is going to be the most important moment, I think, in all of our history, because we don't take back the House and or the Senate? I think all is lost, and we will not have a 2028 election.”

‘Risky endeavor’

Cavanaugh’s campaign has been criticized by some Democrats for putting the state’s “blue dot” at risk if he were to be elected in November, leaving a vacancy in the state legislature for the Republican governor to fill — presumably with a Republican.

Republicans already have a super majority in the Nebraska legislature, but if Cavanaugh was replaced by a Republican, state Democrats would need to flip at least two seats to stop a continued Republican supermajority. Nebraska is only one of two states that splits its electoral college votes.

If Cavanaugh wins, “Republicans will have the super majority that they need to redistrict to put us back to winner-take-all and to pass a heartbeat abortion ban, and they have been very plain and very public, and have made numerous statements publicly that that that is what they will do, and that is their intention,” Rhoades said.

“Electing John Cavanagh is an incredibly risky endeavor.”

On his campaign website, Cavanaugh calls such concerns “MAGA lies” and said a handful of Republicans are willing to protect the “blue dot.” He told Raw Story characterizations of his candidacy as jeopardizing the blue dot are "100 percent false, inaccurate."

Democrats have the chance to pick up five to 10 seats in the state legislature, and the millions spent attacking his campaign would be better spent helping elect those Democrats, Cavanaugh said.

The role of money in this election has concerned the voters, Cavanaugh said. Democratic candidates for the district have raised more than $3.9 million, according to the latest FEC filings.

"They want to hold Donald Trump accountable. They want to focus on affordability, grocery costs, fuel costs, access to health care, cost of health insurance, all of those things are definitely issues people want to focus on at the moment," Cavanaugh said.

"Almost everybody on the doors at this point is only talking about the absolute onslaught of dollars being spent in this race that's become what every conversation is at the door at this point.

Candidates have faced criticisms for the PAC money they’ve received, particularly from pro-Israel groups.

“We cannot credibly say we need money out of politics when we have candidates who are taking big money, so those candidates are just not going to make it in November,” Williams said.

Melanie Williams (provided photo)

‘Stop the partisanship’

Askins has centered her campaign around affordability, health care and accountability and said she has the best chance to win independent Republican votes.

“The action we do see coming out of the White House, it's tearing people apart. It's dividing us. It is causing people to lose their health care. It is causing farmers to struggle more than they've ever struggled before, and so we need to deliver for them, and we need to stop the partisanship and start building bridges, fighting for our people and taking bold action,” Askins said.

Kishla Askins (provided photo)

“We need to excite them now for ’26 with bold people that are actually delivering for them, so that when ’28 comes around, we've already started this process, and so we just need to listen and deliver.

“That's all they want. They're not asking anything huge. They're just asking for affordable health care. They're asking to have a job and be able to spend time with their family, to afford their first home, to be able to maybe take a vacation, to afford their groceries and maybe, maybe save some for retirement.”

The incumbent, Bacon, held onto his seat in part due to crossover votes he got from moderate Democrats and labor unions, Cavanaugh said.

"Bringing home those core constituencies and building the coalition of everyday Nebraskans, labor groups and environmentalists, seniors, working people, very broad coalition of the core Democratic constituencies will allow me to finally flip this seat," Cavanaugh said. "I think there's a real risk that the other candidates in this race can't put together that coalition."

Rhoades said the top concerns she’s hearing from voters involve “the chaos of the Trump administration and its impact on our democracy, and they're concerned about the cost of everything.”

“The point is not for us to just stop the Republicans from doing bad things to us. The point is to actually get enough representation in our government so that we can advance the policies that align with our values, and we're not going to be able to do that if we're giving away seats to MAGA Republicans,” Rhoades said.

Williams said she has been excluded from some candidate forums and took issue with the local Democratic Party pushing for the candidates to sign a pledge backing whoever wins on Tuesday.

“I am not a party loyalist. I'm not a blue hat, and I want to convince Republicans who have fallen away from Donald Trump now that they are seeing who he really is, how their lives are getting harder, and how their friends are getting swept up in these masked raids,” Williams said.

The other Democrat running in the race is disbarred immigration attorney and former Attorney General candidate, Evangelos “Van” Argyrakis.

“I would like to be known as the one who enacted comprehensive immigration reform legislation to preserve our immigrants rights and also to set up a pathway to citizenship,” Argyrakis told Nebraska Public Media. “A quick pathway to citizenship.”

Mark Johnston, who raised just over $10,000, withdrew from the race last summer, and James Leuschen, a Congressional economic policy staffer, will still appear on the ballot but dropped out in March.