Brinker Harding<\/a> against Democratic activist Denise Powell.<\/p>\nThe district encompasses an increasingly Democratic-leaning Omaha metro area of 1 million-plus and its more conservative suburbs \u2014 famous for steaks and the Reuben sandwich’s birthplace, though New York disputes that.<\/p>\n
It’s one of just eight districts nationwide that elected Republicans in House races while supporting Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over Trump two years ago.<\/p>\n
Harding and Powell have been making the rounds at parades and festivals where meat raffles offer oversized sausages as prizes. However, those on-the-ground appeals could be drowned out by Trump who, like most things in politics, has moved to shape November’s midterm elections in his own image.<\/p>\n
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The president is organizing a Republican midterm convention in Dallas next month that will serve as much a two-day rally for him as a boon to party candidates nationwide. Trump is also frequently visiting tightly contested districts, despite his low approval ratings and the unpopular war in Iran.<\/p>\n
While Trump centers himself, Democrats are happy to oblige.<\/p>\n
When Powell knocks on doors to talk to voters, she asks, \u201cWhat\u2019s keeping you up at night?\u201d On a sweaty Saturday afternoon, John Rosseter responded without hesitation. \u201cWell, Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to see the history books written years from now,\u201d said Rosseter, 67, who owns a carpentry business. \u201cThey won\u2019t be pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The \u2018Blue Dot\u2019 hasn’t helped Democratic House candidates<\/p>\n
Nebraska splits its presidential electoral votes, and the 2nd Congressional District’s delegate has gone to Democrats three out of five times since 2008, making it a \u201c blue dot \u201d in an otherwise Republican red state. But a Democrat has won the House seat just once since 1994.<\/p>\n
Harding plays up Trump’s primary endorsement, and House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise campaigned for him. Harding said he has \u201cthe full confidence of, not only the White House, but leadership in the Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has also tried to appeal to swing voters and says he knows the district better than does Powell, co-founder of Women Who Run Nebraska, which supports female candidates.<\/p>\n
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Two possible Democratic 2028 presidential candidates \u2014 ex-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rahm Emanuel, an ex-Chicago mayor who was President Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff \u2014 have campaigned with Powell.<\/p>\n
She talks about how Medicare cuts have increased anxiety about affordability. Powell also points to Trump and his family’s business dealings as an example of \u201cthe choices that they have made while people on the ground are struggling\u201d and she says that resonates with Republicans.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven the ones who aren\u2019t necessarily anti-Trump,” Powell said, “understand the need for checks and balances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some Democrats want a ‘Blue Dot Wave’<\/p>\n
Jason Brown and his wife, Ruth Huebner-Brown, caused a sensation in 2024 by spray painting about 50 reused lawn signs with blue dots and distributing them around Omaha’s Dundee neighborhood. The couple has since expanded to professionally produce signs promoting a \u201cBlue Dot Wave.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Brown said the Republican-controlled Congress has capitulated on \u201cevery Trump nominee, every Trump policy, all the way down to putting gilding gold on statues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supporters of Harding have countered with red \u201cBrinker Dot” signs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to make sure that we keep this country on the track to being even better,\u201d Harding said.<\/p>\n
Jack Hosking, the 90-year-old retired former head of a title insurance company, organizes a weekly coffee to discuss political and community issues. He estimated that about 70% of attendees are Trump voters and \u201cmaybe even more so lately, because of the crap that the New York mayor started,\u201d referring to Zohran Mamdani’s efforts at pushing the Democratic Party to the left.<\/p>\n
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Both Powell and Harding have addressed Hosking’s group, though, and he predicted that as much as half will support the Democrat.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe spoke well enough that, my sense is, a lot of them will cross over,” Hosking said, noting that when it came to campaigning, \u201cBrinker\u2019s not doing much.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president seen as a base motivator <\/p>\n
The Republican National Committee views Trump as a national asset, betting he can prevent complacency in a year without a presidential race, when enthusiasm for the party in power typically wanes.<\/p>\n
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The committee rebranded its \u201cYoung Guns\u201d program for key candidates to \u201cMAGA Majority\u201d in deference to Trump’s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d movement, and many congressional candidates will be at the Dallas convention with Trump.<\/p>\n
Others aren’t waiting that long.<\/p>\n
Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Tom Barrett of Michigan, whom Democrats are aiming to unseat, both appeared with Trump during his rallies in their districts. When the president visited Macungie, Pennsylvania, in June, he joined Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, saying, \u201cI\u2019m here for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump also traveled to the Wisconsin district of Republican Rep. Derreck Van Orden, as have Cabinet members.<\/p>\n
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Rep. Juan Ciscomani, facing a reelection fight, appeared with Trump during an April event in Arizona. Two Iowa Republicans in what could be toss-up reelection contests, Reps Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, both were by Trump’s side when he kicked off his midterm campaign outside Des Moines.<\/p>\n
Bacon sometimes defied the White House in his final term. He criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and tried to curb Trump\u2019s ability to impose tariffs and was the only House Republican who opposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.<\/p>\n
Mary Jane Truemper, who heads the Nebraska Republican Party, said Powell and the state’s Democrats have moved too far to the left. She called Harding \u201ca steady force\u201d and said the nominee is not as fond of picking high-profile fights the way Bacon sometimes was.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he speaks to the moderate Democrats as well as the Republicans,\u201d said Truemper, who managed Bacon\u2019s reelection campaign in 2018 and also worked for an unsuccessful primary challenger to him.<\/p>\n
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Even Powell said, \u201cDon Bacon was a good representative of this district, and I think that there are a lot of people drawn to a pragmatic style of leadership in a state like ours.\u201d But that may not be enough this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are worse off than they were before,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n
A local race may expose a wider party divide among neighbors<\/p>\n
In the Elmwood Park neighborhood, Andy Maxwell, a 58-year-old pediatrician, said he likes to find the middle ground in politics and his community. But he recalled that, after putting up a Biden sign in his yard in 2020, his neighbors erected a Trump one.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe don\u2019t like all the turmoil part of it,\u201d Maxwell said of politics nationally.<\/p>\n
Nearby, 80-year-old Jerard Pearson called Democrats \u201cfeckless,\u201d but said of Trump’s base supporters, \u201cI\u2019ve always been curious about this one-third level of crazy out there, a third of the population.\u201d He is also no fan of a neighbor’s large \u201cHarding for Congress\u201d sign.<\/p>\n
Truemper said Harding appreciates Trump’s endorsement but Nebraskans like to be wooed “person-to-person, rather than a national entity coming in.”<\/p>\n
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\u201cIs that going to be the deciding factor?” she asked of Trump. “I don’t know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denise Powell, left, the Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives in Nebraska’s second congressional district, and her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[143],"tags":[49,73224,17500,12,88415,88420,88417,88419,81314,6836,35338,34060,88416,478,4005,1510,668,572,573,13610,18,41980,569,570,4090,4091,26574,88418,26485,1078,45736,88414,22035,553],"class_list":["post-197912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mike-johnson","tag-barack-obama","tag-denise-powell","tag-don-bacon","tag-donald-trump","tag-jack-hosking","tag-jason-brown","tag-jerard-pearson","tag-john-rosseter","tag-juan-ciscomani","tag-kamala-harris","tag-lyndon-johnson","tag-mariannette-miller-meeks","tag-mary-jane-truemper","tag-mike-johnson","tag-mike-lawler","tag-nebraska","tag-omaha","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-pete-buttigieg","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-product-30073-ap-nebraska-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-32510-ap-online-general-election-news","tag-product-32520-ap-online-other-u-s-government-news","tag-rahm-emanuel","tag-ruth-huebner","tag-ryan-mackenzie","tag-steve-scalise","tag-tom-barrett","tag-trump-omaha-nebraska-congress-strict-blue-dot-midterms","tag-zach-nunn","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}