Without GOP Support, Bacon Faces A Strong Challenge From Dem Tony Vargas
The other day we saw how the Freedom Caucus’ toxicity is seeping back to the states from DC. In Missouri, the Freedom Caucus wants to settle their differences with other Republicans in the legislature by challenging them to duels. In Tennessee and Oklahoma, extremists in the state legislatures want to follow the example of Idaho in criminalizing travel to other states for an abortion. In November, voters will decide if that’s the kind of country we want. And it will be close. Well… it won’t be close in Nebraska.
In 2016, Trump won Nebraska 495,961 (58.7%) to 284,494 (33.7%), taking 91 of Nebraska 93 counties. After his 4 years in office, most Nebraska voters were still all in on the cult. Trump won again— 556,846 (58.5%) to 374,583 (39.4%)… same 91 counties. A Democrat has only won the state once since FDR’s first reelection in 1936, and that was the LBJ landslide of 1964 (and even that was pretty close and Johnson’s weakest performance in the Great Plains states— Johnson winning 38 counties to Goldwater’s 55). It isn’t that Nebraska Republicans are necessarily stupid per se, as it is that they have a marked propensity towards authoritarianism and are gullible and easily taken in by a charlatan, marks for a game of political 3-card monte.
Yesterday, Aaron Sanderford reported that on Saturday, the state Republican Party endorsed Republican challengers to three GOP incumbents: Joh Weaver, who's running against Sen. Pete Ricketts; Dan Frei, running against Rep. Don Bacon; and John Walz, running against Rep. Adrian Smith. It’s the first time in their elected runs that none of Nebraska’s five-member, all-GOP congressional delegation received an endorsement from the state party. The party’s central committee didn’t endorse Sen. Deb Fischer and Rep. Mike Flood, nor candidates against them.
In the summer of 2022, MAGAts took over the party apparatus from the Republican establishment that had been running it while Ricketts was governor. Weaver and Frei have publicly announced that they align with the House Freedom Caucus. In trying to describe what the state party isn’t, Weaver actually described what the party has become: “It’s not like it’s a bunch of crazy people who got together in a room.” It is. Walz said he’s running as a MAGA Republican. The Nebraska Republican Party is fully MAGA and as fascist as you can be without running around with swastika armbands.
Sanderford wrote that “Not many political observers expect the endorsed candidates to see a major infusion of cash, because the state GOP’s fundraising has fallen off since the transition to new leadership. The biggest bump could be in energy from some activist Republicans… Frei, who has said he would join the Freedom Caucus if elected, nearly upset Rep. Lee Terry in the 2014 GOP primary, losing by 6 percentage points. He has embraced Trump and positioned his candidacy as an effort to excite the populist wing of the party.”
The problem there is that Trump lost that district, Omaha and its suburbs, in 2020. Biden took NE-02 52.2% to 45.8%. Don Bacon has tried to toe a mainstream conservative line but is often drawn into extremism by the bent of the House Republican conference. While Trump was losing the district by 6.3 points in 2020, Bacon managed to win by 4.6 points. But in 2022, it was much closer, Bacon hanging on by just over 5,000 votes— 2.6%— against state Senator Tony Vargas, who’s running against him again this year. After the vote, Bacon released a statement pointing out that if Frei won the primary he would lose the general election with 42-43%: “Most state parties do not go against incumbents… I know that my record of results will prevail this May and November. I am a common-sense conservative who is able to reach across the aisle and find areas of consensus… I’ve been the conservative on key issues.”
In another piece, Sanderson focussed on the NE-02 primary race between Bacon and Frei, noting right off the bat that Frei says “he would join the House Freedom Caucus if elected.” Both candidates support Trump, Frei more enthusiastically. “He is banking on energizing the right flank of the GOP in a swing district that Trump lost to President Joe Biden in 2020.” Douglas (Omaha) is a normal American mainstream county. Sarpy and Saunders are fascist hotbeds. Biden won Douglas by 11 points. Trump won Sarpy by 11 and Saunders by 45, although both have small populations. In 2020, Douglas had 276,540 voters, while Sarpy had 96,193 and Saunders just 12,786.
“Frei’s embrace of Trump’s populism,” wrote Sanderson, “has echoes in the past. In 2014, Frei rode Tea Party angst and local dissatisfaction with U.S. Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., to pull within six points of a GOP primary upset… This time, he wants to harness the energy Trump has whipped up in recent years to beat Bacon. Once again, Frei says the GOP incumbent hasn’t voted or acted conservatively enough. Frei said he is tired of Bacon telling different audiences what they want to hear… He criticized Bacon for voting to approve short-term spending bills, called continuing resolutions, to avoid government shutdowns. ‘I will never vote for a continuing resolution,’ Frei said. ‘We’re either going to do our job, or we are going to stay there until it’s done. Don’t count on me to ever vote to bail you out because, as a body, we didn’t do our job.’ … [Matt] Gaetz and [Gym] Jordan clashed publicly with Bacon last fall during the drawn-out effort to replace McCarthy because Bacon did not support Jordan’s bid for speaker. Bacon criticized Jordan during the leadership battle, saying Jordan backstabbed Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) in his bid for House speaker. Bacon said Scalise had rightfully won the job in a vote of his peers and that Jordan and his allies then tanked him. Bacon and other GOP holdouts later supported current House Speaker Mike Johnson.”
Identifying himself as a pro-Putin Russo-Republican, Frei said he opposes aid to Ukraine and he also “criticized Bacon’s support for a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill in 2021. Bacon has said the bill is bringing billions of dollars in new investment to Nebraska for roads, bridges and broadband deployment. Trump also has criticized Bacon’s support of the infrastructure bill— a measure Trump supported when he was president but opposed when the bill passed under Biden. During a Nebraska visit in 2022, months after the vote, Trump called Bacon ‘bad news.’ Frei and his campaign make no bones about his push to secure Trump’s endorsement. Frei joined former Trump campaign adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast Thursday, where Bannon bashed Bacon.”
