Nebraska primary could decide Omaha’s blue dot and House battleground

Nebraska’s Omaha-area “blue dot” faced one of its biggest tests in years as voters weighed in on an open House seat that could help shape the 2026 battlefield. With Republican Rep. Don Bacon retiring, the 2nd Congressional District, centered on Omaha and its suburbs, became a prize for Democrats who see one of their best pickup chances of the cycle in a district that has backed Democratic presidential candidates three of the past five times since 2008.

Three Democrats emerged as the leading contenders for the nomination: state Sen. John Cavanaugh, political activist Denise Powell and district court clerk Crystal Rhoades. On the Republican side, Omaha City Council member Brinker Harding ran unopposed after winning the endorsement of President Donald Trump. The contest mattered far beyond Nebraska because the state and Maine are the only two that split Electoral College votes by congressional district, and Nebraska’s 2nd District has repeatedly delivered an Omaha-area electoral vote to Democrats in presidential races.

That makes the primary a proxy fight over suburban swing voters and whether either party has found a formula that can hold up in November. If Democrats can convert the district’s presidential pattern into a House win, they would put another competitive seat on the map in a year when the House majority could hinge on a handful of suburban districts. If Republicans can keep Omaha in the column despite Bacon’s exit, they would show that Trump’s endorsement and a unified GOP field can still hold a district that has trended both ways.

Nebraska’s ballot also carried an unusual Senate race. Sen. Pete Ricketts, Nebraska’s junior senator, sought reelection to his first full six-year term, and the Democratic primary was marked by candidates accusing one another of being “fake” contenders and of not intending to compete seriously in the general election. That dynamic suggested the race was as much about party positioning and signaling as about a realistic shot at the seat itself.

The same election day brought a separate but equally revealing power struggle in West Virginia. Gov. Patrick Morrisey was not on the ballot, but he used the primary to try to reshape Republican supermajorities in the state legislature, even as Sen. Shelley Moore Capito backed different GOP candidates in some statehouse races. PACs linked to Morrisey had already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, underscoring how much money and political capital had gone into a fight over the direction of a deep-red state’s governing agenda.