The Nebraska Split
Nebraska electoral map
OMAHA, Nebraska — It was as heartwarming a display of bipartisan comity as one is likely to see these days: a Democrat standing up to endorse a Republican House candidate in a close-fought swing-district race. At a storefront campaign office, Ann Ashford declared her support for Republican Rep. Don Bacon, who had beaten her late husband, Brad Ashford, in 2016. “I’m a Democrat,” she said. “I’m a Harris-Bacon voter. … I believe that there are other Harris-Bacon voters.”
Bacon had better hope so, since the district he represents — Nebraska’s 2nd, where a single presidential electoral vote is also at play — in recent polling appears to have turned decisively against Donald Trump. By a quirk of state law, Nebraska is one of two states to award its presidential electoral votes based on congressional district, not just statewide results. Back in the spring, with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, Trump was polling even or sometimes a few points ahead here. But here as elsewhere, Kamala Harris’s ascent to the Democratic nomination has scrambled the map. And among the battlegrounds, this smallest one in an otherwise solidly red state is polling as Harris’ biggest lead. There’s even an outside chance that its one electoral vote could put Harris over the top and into the White House if, for example, Trump were to sweep the Sun Belt battlegrounds and Harris claimed the Blue Wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. By Kathy Gilsinan ‘Politico’
