{"id":28606,"date":"2026-05-14T12:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/28606\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T12:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:34:15","slug":"denise-powell-wins-democratic-primary-in-nebraskas-blue-dot-2nd-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/28606\/","title":{"rendered":"Denise Powell wins Democratic primary in Nebraska\u2019s \u2018blue dot\u2019 2nd District"},"content":{"rendered":"

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) \u2014 Denise Powell won the Democratic primary in Nebraska\u2019s 2nd Congressional District<\/a> on Wednesday in a contest focused on the state\u2019s \u201cblue dot\u201d status in presidential elections. <\/p>\n

The Omaha-area district, where Republican U.S. Rep. Don Bacon is retiring<\/a>, is one of Democrats\u2019 biggest targets this midterm season. It\u2019s also a national focus every four years in presidential contests because Nebraska is one of just two states that splits its electoral votes. The 2nd District has gone to Democratic presidential candidates three out of five times since 2008 \u2014 a \u201cblue dot\u201d in an otherwise sea of red.<\/p>\n

Powell, a political activist, defeated state Sen. John Cavanaugh and several other candidates in the Democratic primary. She and Cavanaugh were in a tight race that could not be called Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Powell will face Brinker Harding, an Omaha City Council member endorsed by President Donald Trump. He ran unopposed in Tuesday\u2019s GOP primary. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis country and Nebraska are worth fighting for \u2014 and I\u2019m ready to spend the next six months working for every vote and sharing my vision for Nebraska so we can finally have a representative in Congress who will serve us,\u201d Powell said in a statement. \u201cIt\u2019s time to be brave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powell led Cavanaugh by 2.1 percentage points, or 1,080 votes, out of more than 51,000 votes counted.<\/p>\n

AP called the race after Douglas County election officials said there were only 5,125 outstanding mail-in ballots in the Democratic primary, and a total of 830 provisional ballots from all political parties. Even if all those ballots are counted in the Democratic primary, Cavanaugh would have to win them by about 18 percentage points over Powell to close the gap, a margin he didn\u2019t come close to achieving in any of the five vote updates provided by Douglas County so far. Cavanaugh trailed in all three counties in the district, though Douglas accounted for about 93% of the votes.<\/p>\n

The matchup between Powell and Harding is expected to be among this fall\u2019s most competitive House races, as Democrats try to win control of the chamber for the second half of Trump\u2019s term. <\/p>\n

The 2nd District is one of just three districts in the country that supported Democrat Kamala Harris for president in 2024 while also electing a Republican representative. Trump won the district in 2016, and the retiring Bacon, who has clashed with Trump, has held the House seat for five terms.<\/p>\n

The Nebraska GOP said in a statement Wednesday that Republicans are ready to fight back against a \u201cradical left\u201d that has poured money into the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe left wants Nebraska, and we are going to make sure they don\u2019t get it,\u201d said NEGOP Chairman Mary Jane Truemper. <\/p>\n

Powell, who is Latina, co-founded Women Who Run Nebraska, a political action committee that supports progressive female candidates, and she has a decade of Democratic political activism. She had the backing of EMILY\u2019s List and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus\u2019 campaign operation. <\/p>\n

Powell has never held office but said her deep connections have helped her with independents and third-party voters, who make up nearly 30% of the district\u2019s electorate.<\/p>\n

Some Democratic critics argued that a Cavanaugh primary victory would have jeopardized the district\u2019s \u201cblue dot\u201d status because he\u2019d be leaving his valuable state legislative seat, making it easier for Republicans in the Nebraska Legislature to change the law that allows the state to split its electoral votes. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Peoples reported from New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OMAHA, Neb. (AP) \u2014 Denise Powell won the Democratic primary in Nebraska\u2019s 2nd Congressional District on Wednesday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[362,17444,2139,38,17446,286,50,8,17445,1057,17447,816,814,9,10549,67,10933,7,363,54,365],"class_list":{"0":"post-28606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-2026-elections","9":"tag-denise-powell","10":"tag-don-bacon","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-douglas-ag","13":"tag-elections","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-john-cavanaugh","17":"tag-kamala-harris","18":"tag-mary-jane-truemper","19":"tag-ne-state-wire","20":"tag-nebraska","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-omaha","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-socialism","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","27":"tag-u-s-news","28":"tag-u-s-republican-party"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116572957098249865","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}