I wonder if Congressman Don Bacon feels like a man without a home.  He’s a Republican incumbent congressman that has not been endorsed by the states Republican Party.  In fact, the Nebraska Republican Party has not endorsed any incumbent elected federal offi-cial.  Deb Fisher, Pete Ricketts, Mike Flood, and Adrian Smith have all been ignored by their own state party party. 

However, a while back Don Bacon was endorsed by the Douglas County Republican Party. But that was before the Douglas county party’s recent convention, where a number of MAGA supporters were elected as state party delegates.  So that endorsement came with the old county party make up.  Who knows if he would have gotten that endorsement today.

Dan Frei is running against Bacon in the upcoming primary.  Frei ran for the nomination in 2024 against incumbent Lee Terry where he garnered 47% of the Republican vote. After that tough primary battle, Lee Terry went on to lose the General Election to Brad Ashford, who served one term. 

And while Congressman Bacon should win the Primary it won’t happen without a cost. Not only a cost in campaign finances, but a cost of Republicans who may not vote for him in the General election. You see Dan Frei says that if he’s elected, he’ll join the far right Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus has members that include Jim Jordan and former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. The Freedom Caucus blocks more legislation than it passes.

Whereas Don Bacon is a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, whose members include both Republican and Democrat legislators who work together to try to find common ground. But recently Congressman Bacon has taken more far right positions in an effort to avoid a primary loss to Frei.  Will that cost him the support of the traditional Republican vot-ers due to the concessions he’s made to the MAGA Republicans? Or will the Dan Frei voters abandon the Republican nominee and write in someone else because they don’t believe Don Bacon is MAGA enough?

Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District is one of the most flippable districts in the country. The national Democrats see an opportunity here to pick up a congressional seat, and have committed to spending at least two million dollars in TV and digital advertising to support Tony Vargas.  That doesn’t include the funds the Vargas campaign has raised on it’s own.

Now in another time Don Bacon would be a shoo-in for reelection.  He’s a moderate Repub-lican who has great constituent services. He’s palatable to many Democrats and most of what the Republican Party used to be.  He’s Nebraska nice who has strong opinions but is willing to listen to and work with the other side.  Traits that used to be respected far more than they are now in these hyper partisan times.

Don Bacon is a Republican that has not supported Donald Trump in the past, but now says he will vote for him anyway assuming he is the Republican nominee. In other words, he will vote for a man who motivated an angry crowd to storm the Capitol and put his life, as well as the lives of the Vice President and other members of Congress at risk.  He’ll vote for the man who not only refused to return classified documents, but showed those very documents to people that weren’t properly vetted. He’ll vote for Trump just because the twice impeached former president and current defendant claims to be a Republican.

And I know this has numerous moderate Republicans, Democrats, and Independents in our district wondering if they can support him this time in the General Election. In 2020 these voters supported Joe Biden but then voted for Don Bacon to be reelected.  It’s too ear-ly to tell if that might happen again in 2024. 

Under the leadership of Donald Trump, the Republican party has lost races they should have won.  They have lost control of the White House, the Senate, and numerous house seats.  And while Don Bacon deserves to win reelection, I fear that if he doesn’t get it, it will be Republicans who do him in as much as the Democrats.

I’m not going to make any predictions on how this will all turn out.  The state’s Republican Party is in disarray and the Nebraska Democrats are unorganized.  I will say that at this point if after all the votes are counted if Don Bacon, Tony Vargas, or Dan Frei is our next Con-gressman I won’t be surprised.

Tom Becka is a long time Nebraska broadcaster who for over 30 years has been covering Omaha and Midwest issues on both radio and TV. He has been a guest on numerous national cable and news shows, filled in for nationally syndicated talk radio programs and Talkers Magazine has recognized him as one of the Top 100 talk show hosts in the country 10 times. Never afraid to ruffle some feathers, his ‘Becka’s Beat’ commentaries can be found online on Youtube and other digital platforms.

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