#ne-01

Reports of a “Republican wave” in the 2022 midterms may be overstated. All too often pundits just repeat each other’s prognostications without formulating fresh analyses.

Last week there was a special election in Nebraska’s 1st congressional district. It was to fill the seat of a Republican representative who resigned in the wake of a corruption scandal.

NE-01 is rated Trump +11. Registered Republicans enjoy a 16 point advantage over registered Democrats there. Republicans take this district for granted.

So Democratic candidate Patty Pansing Brooks outperformed expectations and came in just 5.78% behind Republican victor Mike Flood in NE-01. It may mean that Kevin McCarthy should quit picking out furniture for the House Speaker’s office.

Flood collected more than 80% of the vote in five of the 1st Congressional District’s rural counties: Butler, Colfax, Cuming, Polk and Stanton. He also won more than 80% of the vote in Platte County (Columbus) and in Madison County (Norfolk), where he lives.

Pansing Brooks, who lives in Lincoln, tallied more votes in Lancaster County than other Nebraska Democrats running for the House in recent years. She won 57% of the vote in her home county, which has more than half of the district’s voters and most of its registered Democrats.

Flood and his team said after the win that he needs to perform better this November in Lincoln, where he served as Speaker of the Legislature.

By coincidence, this House election (not primary) comes soon after the Republican Supreme Court’s extremist anti-abortion decision.

Abortion was a factor, Hibbing said. So was the unusual timing of the special election, which drove down turnout and amplified the influence of more motivated voters on the outcome. About 27% of those registered in the 1st District voted.

“I think you really had to be motivated, and the Democrats were more so,” Hibbing said.

Abortion rights moved up on the list of priorities for many women the Democrats interacted with during the campaign, by texts, calls or knocks on the door, said Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party. She expects that interest level to stay elevated this fall.

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Flood opposes abortion. He helped pass restrictions that outlawed abortion in Nebraska after 20 weeks, and he tried to help the state pass a so-called “trigger bill” that would have banned abortion in the state after the Roe decision.

Pansing Brooks is an abortion-rights candidate who has framed attacks on abortion as attacks on women’s bodily autonomy.

Official results from the Nebraska Secretary of State.

This result should serve as a warning to Republicans. Flood’s margin of victory was just slightly over half of the Trump+11 rating for the district.

A Democratic swing of 5% in every Republican district with a substantial percentage of suburban voters would doom the GOP’s chances of taking control of the House.

Control of the US House is determined district by district. So even if your district is rated as Leaning Republican it would be worthwhile to support your local Democratic candidate with volunteer work or campaign contributions.

Pacific Northwesterners may be accustomed to mentally picturing Nebraska as a giant cornfield between Kansas, Iowa and Wyoming — a state in the very middle of the country that has little in common politically with the Left Coast, with a ruby red electorate not unlike that of other midwestern states such as the Dakotas or Oklahoma. While Nebraska does indeed typically vote for Republican…