OMAHA – Republican Rep. Don Bacon stood in his campaign office tucked behind a busy commercial stretch on the city’s outskirts and pondered his place on the political spectrum.
Democrats say he’s a committed member of former President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, while some of his fellow Republicans dismiss him as “a commie Democrat RINO,” he said on Wednesday, using a derisive acronym for Republican in Name Only.
The retired Air Force brigadier general seeking his fifth term said he’s tried to chart his own course. “That’s the personality of our district,” Bacon said.
Voter registration in the 2nd District is fairly evenly divided, with Republicans leading, followed closely by Democrats and a slightly smaller pool of unaffiliated voters. “If you want to be a hardcore Republican here, you only get a third of the vote,’’ he said.
So it’s not surprising that Bacon, in a fight for his political future against Democratic state Sen. Tony Vargas, has emphasized bipartisanship. Among his latest commercials is an ad featuring Democrat Ann Ashford, who once ran for the seat and is the widow of former Rep. Brad Ashford, whom Bacon defeated in 2016.
But it’s not just the district’s close political divide that has imperiled Bacon’s reelection hopes. A growing Latino population, two abortion-related ballot questions and an influx of spending by national Democrats battling to win the district’s single Electoral College vote also play a role.
Honestly …
Earlier this year, the state dropped its cheeky tourism tagline, “Nebraska, honestly it’s not for everyone.” The timing is coincidental, and the slogan was ironic, but it does seem like there is something to the state’s ubiquity in campaign circles, with a competitive House race, Senate race and presidential race in the 2nd District.
In a sign of just how crucial the swing seat centered on Omaha is to both parties’ hopes of winning the House majority, the final weeks before the election have brought a parade of high-profile leaders to eastern Nebraska, including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Party committees and super PACs are spending heavily here.
“The future of the House of Representatives won’t simply come down to what happens in New York and California, though [they] are important races,’’ Jeffries said here on Sunday, where he was the featured speaker at a get-out-the-vote rally. “The heartland of the United States of America, here in Nebraska, in Wisconsin, in Iowa and in other parts of the center of this great country will have a big role to play in what type of a Congress we’ll have moving forward.”
Vargas, who came within 3 percentage points of beating Bacon in 2022, says Democratic enthusiasm is palpable. “The energy is real,’’ said Vargas, who would be the first Latino to represent Nebraska in Congress. “We’ve knocked on 15 times more doors than we did at this point two years ago.”
Vargas raised $6.1 million to Bacon’s $5.6 million through Sept. 30, and Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales recently shifted the race from Toss Up to Tilt Democratic.
Some of that energy is fueled by the “blue dot” phenomenon. Omaha — like Columbus, Ohio, and Missoula, Mont., and Indianapolis, Ind., among others — is a sea of cerulean (or at least periwinkle purple) in a dark crimson state. But unlike those other “blue dots,” Nebraska, as well as Maine, awards its Electoral College votes by congressional district, which is why Democrats are spending millions to reach voters here.
Over the weekend, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, and Trump surrogates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii also held campaign events here.
The Trump campaign, which made an unsuccessful bid to pressure Nebraska’s unicameral legislature to change the law, has spent a fraction of what Democrats have. “That hurts us down ballot,’’ Bacon said. President Joe Biden won the district by 6.4 percentage points in 2020.
The overlay of presidential politics — evident in the blue dot lawn signs Democrats have sprung up all over town — and the nationalization of congressional contests is shaping the race in other ways. Bacon is part of a cadre of endangered Republicans in battleground districts who have struggled to navigate the Trump era’s shifting political landscape.
Bacon endorsed Trump in 2016 and was the first member of the state’s all-GOP congressional delegation to back him in 2020. This cycle, he favored former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley over Trump, but came back to the former president after he won the nomination.
‘Other baggage’
Trump wins Bacon’s vote because of his handling of the economy, the border and public safety, Bacon said. But, he added, he doesn’t like “the other baggage” the former president brings. “There are things that I can’t defend and I won’t defend,” he said. “The behavior on Jan. 6, I don’t defend.”
Bacon voted to certify the 2020 presidential election, but also voted against impeaching Trump for his role in fomenting the insurrection at the Capitol.
Last month, Bacon spearheaded a bipartisan pledge to uphold the results of the 2024 election and serve as “a voice for calm and reconciliation” once the votes are tallied.
Bacon’s complicated relationship with the right flank of his party reached a nadir during last year’s speaker battles in the House. Bacon’s refusal to back hard-right members, including Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, for the speaker’s post, brought on a wave of negative reaction, including threatening phone calls to Bacon’s wife, from angry conservatives who live outside the district. It also led to a far-right primary opponent, Dan Frei, whom Bacon handily defeated in May.
Despite the backlash, Bacon said he has no regrets. “I worked for a great general who said, ‘Don, if you fall on your sword every day, there’s something wrong. But when you fall on your sword, make sure it hits,’’ he said. “That’s my motto.”
In pressing his case with voters, Bacon touts his military experience and his record of delivering for the district, including funding for Offutt Air Force Base, a major presence in eastern Nebraska and the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command.
“No other Republican could win there other than a Don Bacon type,’’ said Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group that supports centrist House Republicans and is backing Bacon. In focus groups Chamberlain observed, many voters expressed enthusiasm for Bacon, even though they didn’t know the specifics of his policy positions. “He’s like the old type [of] politician where you actually know them and like them.”
Bacon’s brand of politics plays well in Nebraska, said Lou Ann Linehan. The Republican state senator is backing Bacon and joined him at a press conference Wednesday.
“We’re very independent,” Linehan said, noting that she once endorsed Vargas, even though she came to the press conference with other state lawmakers to bash Vargas’ legislative record. “We care a great deal about character. We care about hard work ….And that is Nebraska.”
Vargas says Bacon’s image as an amiable centrist conceals a conservative record that would embolden Trump, should he win.
“He’s trying to play like he’s moderate on the issue and [people] just [aren’t] buying it,’’ Vargas said in an interview. “Donald Trump could get reelected and have people like Bacon that just enable him.”
Vargas, the son of Peruvian immigrants, is a former public school teacher who has focused his campaign on strengthening public schools, lowering prescription drug costs and passing a tax cut for middle income earners.
He said voters repeatedly tell him, “I have a top issue [and] it’s the cost of living [but] a deal breaker is abortion rights.”
Importance of abortion
Indeed, abortion access has emerged as a key flashpoint, as it has in many House races this fall. Vargas accused Bacon of trying to soften his earlier opposition to abortion. During a televised debate last week, the Democrat said his rival co-sponsored an abortion ban “three times with no exceptions for rape or incest or life of the mother.”
Bacon said Vargas is distorting his record, and that he backs exceptions when a mother’s health is in jeopardy or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
Abortion is on the ballot here, with voters facing two questions: one would amend the state constitution to allow abortion up to fetal viability, or 24 weeks, while the other would mirror the current law, which bans abortions in the second and third trimesters, except in medical emergencies or when the pregnancy is a result of sexual assault.
Bacon contends that abortion access lags behind the economy, immigration and public safety as the chief concerns of voters this fall. “The top three issues are Republican issues and abortion is No. 4,’’ Bacon said. “We have a lot of Catholics, a lot of evangelicals [in the district] so [Vargas] angers about as many people as he motivates with this stuff.”
Becky Schnabel, an unaffiliated voter who is active in a nonpartisan Omaha-based civic group called Diverse Women Lifting Our Voices, disagrees with Bacon’s assessment.
“I’m 75 years old but [reproductive rights] are a driver for me,’’ she said following a forum Tuesday night where Vargas and several other candidates spoke. “A woman should be able to choose what she wants to do with her own body.”
Bill Clark contributed to this report.
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