Blue dot gamble? Dem insiders weigh chance that winning Congress could lose Legislature

State Sen. John Cavanaugh on Saturday took up one of the flyers accusing him of putting the “Blue Dot” at risk and tore it to shreds. 

He and his supporters were using pieces of the thousands of attack flyers that have hit Omaha-area mailboxes to make collage-style “Vote Cavanaugh” signs — the symbolic, cathartic activity perhaps creating some modest benefit for his campaign from the ads that have shaken up the Democratic primary in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District. 

A pair of progressive super PACs have spent more than $1 million pounding home a dire message: If Cavanaugh is elected to Congress and gives up his seat in the Nebraska Legislature, it would give Republicans the votes needed to erase the “Blue Dot” in presidential elections and pass a total abortion ban.

Cavanaugh has decried the anonymity behind the dark money ads run against him and in support of primary opponent Denise Powell, countering with his own message: Democrats are poised for a big political year, set to gain seats in the Legislature.

Days before the critical primary, what’s a Democrat to believe? 

While only time will tell who is right, recent interviews with Democrats and Republicans who make it their business to influence the makeup of the Legislature produced a point of agreement: This year’s best shot for Republicans to flip a legislative seat is if Cavanaugh goes to Washington and the governor appoints a Republican in his place. That’s how favorably the battleground tilts toward Democrats. 

But whether that environment will produce the gains that would be needed to offset the loss of Cavanaugh’s seat is murkier, they say. 

In the 49-member Legislature, the minimum goal for progressives is 17 seats — the number needed to deny Republicans the 33-seat supermajority they could use to choke off filibusters and pass bills onerous to Democrats.

Given that progressive Democrats or nonpartisans currently hold 16 seats, losing Cavanaugh’s would require them to flip two GOP seats to reach that target. 

Most Democratic operatives and stakeholders interviewed by the Flatwater Free Press say they’re bullish on the party’s chances for gains. 

The national political currents favor Democrats, they say. The party faithful are fired up over the policies of President Donald Trump. And a new, well-funded progressive Nebraska political action committee is throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars into state legislative races. 

A representative of one progressive stakeholder group said it would be disappointing if progressives don’t come out of November with 17 to 18 seats. 

Barry Rubin, a longtime Nebraska political consultant who typically works for Democrats, said he sees the whole Blue Dot question as largely academic. If Cavanaugh does get elected to Congress — claiming the 2nd District seat Republicans have held for a decade  —  that would mean it’s a good year for Democrats up and down the ballot, including those running for Legislature.

“I just don’t see how if a Democrat wins that congressional seat that doesn’t translate into at least two to five potentially new Democratic legislators down the ballot,” Rubin said. 

But both Republicans stakeholders and Cavanaugh’s opponents suggest that banking on Democratic pickups in the Legislature could turn into a bad gamble.

Republican operatives noted that all but one of the legislative districts Democrats hope to flip were won by Trump in 2024. If the districts vote this fall the same way they did in 2024, that single Democratic flip would be offset by the loss of the Cavanaugh seat should he go to Congress. 

That would leave the current 33-seat Republican supermajority intact — with the final 33rd seat potentially filled by a reliable conservative appointed by Gov. Jim Pillen.

Progressive nonpartisan Sen. Megan Hunt, who says she’s not endorsing any candidate in the race, has called it “magical thinking” to suggest that Cavanaugh giving up his seat doesn’t put the Blue Dot or abortion rights at risk. 

“My colleagues who have endorsed John keep repeating this fantasy,” she said in a recent social media post. “Nobody can guarantee that.”

Randall Adkins, a University of Nebraska at Omaha political scientist, notes that the environment could yet get worse for Republicans, with the Iran war, spiking gas prices and the specter of an economic downturn. But Adkins and operatives and stakeholders on both sides agreed that in the end, there are no guarantees. 

Hotly contested legislative races often come down to the thinnest of margins, Adkins said. 

“It literally can come down to 100 people’s hands that you shook,” Adkins said. 

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While the Nebraska Legislature is officially nonpartisan, that’s certainly a misnomer come election time, when both political parties recruit and campaign for candidates, and interest groups pour money in on both sides. 

The stakes have also been raised in recent years. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade put a statewide abortion ban in play. And Trump in 2024 made a strong-arm attempt to convince Republican state senators to dump Nebraska’s method of apportioning three of the state’s five electoral votes by congressional district in favor of the winner-take-all system that all but Nebraska and Maine use. 

It should be noted that while it takes 33 votes to choke off a filibuster, the voting in Lincoln doesn’t always completely follow party lines. 

For example, Republicans in 2023 had only 32 seats but were still able to pass a bill banning abortion after the first trimester with the support of Democrat Mike McDonnell, who later switched parties. Similarly, even though Republicans in the past Legislature held 33 seats, they weren’t able to pass winner-take-all or further restrict abortion. 

Sen. Merv Riepe, a Republican from Ralston, has not backed the electoral change, and it’s believed there have been other moderate Republican holdouts on that, a stricter abortion ban and funding private school vouchers. 

In an effort to shed light on the current landscape, Flatwater spoke to nearly a dozen people from both parties active in legislative campaigns as political consultants, representatives of key stakeholder groups or close observers. Most spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to share their thoughts freely. 

There was agreement on both sides of the aisle that the battlefield favors Democrats. 

“If you look at the matchups, there’s a lot of pickup opportunities for Democrats, and the Republicans really aren’t seriously challenging any Democrat seats,” Rubin said. 

The first obligation for Democrats: Hold the seats they have. Even GOP interests said the party appears in a relatively good position to do that. 

Meanwhile, Republicans are playing defense in five Omaha-area districts.

Races to watch: These battles will decide balance of power in Legislature

Progressives also see outside shots in three open districts in more rural east and southeast Nebraska. 

One Democratic operative noted that former state Sen. Lynne Walz of Fremont — now a Democratic candidate for governor — twice prevailed in a legislative district that Trump carried by 30 points. She showed, the operative said, that good Democrat candidates can still win in Trump country. But even that operative — who believes the Democrats seem likely to pick up one or two seats — notes that, six months out, many of these general election races look like coin tosses. 

Funding is also critical in legislative races, and progressives this year have that in abundance. 

Lincoln-based PAC Democracy Nebraska has already injected $275,000 into contested legislative races. Backed by a pool of anonymous donors affiliated with former Lincoln State Sen. Adam Morfeld, it appears to serve as a counter to the big money that the family of former Nebraska governor and now-U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts — and in recent years, Gov. Pillen — have put behind Republicans. 

With top donations of $35,000 per race, Democracy Nebraska so far has helped nearly all the progressives outraise their opponents in the races expected to hold sway in the election. 

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the national party organization that raises money to support Democrats in statehouse races, also announced in December it was adding Nebraska to its list of 27 target states. Its express goal is stopping a Republican supermajority. 

The national political winds have also been at Democrats’ backs over the past year. 

In more than 100 special elections held nationally in 2025 and 2026, Democrats have improved on their margins in the 2024 presidential election by an average of almost 13 points, according to election analysis website The Downballot. Polling on a generic congressional ballot, another voter mood indicator, currently favors Democrats by nearly 6 points.

Such margins typically moderate by the time of the general election. Given that and the notable past Republican edge in most of the districts Democrats are seeking to flip, one GOP operative called predictions of big Democratic gains “foolishly optimistic.”

It’s notable that during Trump’s first term, Democrats gained two seats in the Legislature in the 2018 midterm election, with the number of Democrat/nonpartisan seats going from 17 to 19 — a recent high-water mark.  

In addition to the national wave, progressive interests say many Nebraskans are fired up by Republican votes in the Legislature that went against voter-approved  ballot measures on medical marijuana, the minimum wage and paid family leave. That issue is already being used as a cudgel against incumbent Republicans, and a Democratic stakeholder reported hearing about it often in door-to-door campaigning before the primary. 

But to a person, even optimistic Democratic operatives and stakeholders said it’s impossible to say the party will definitely gain seats this year. 

Both Democrats and Republicans also told Flatwater it’s impossible to predict the future of key issues in Lincoln, regardless of the election’s outcome. A new Legislature will bring new leadership, lots of new faces and all-new dynamics. 

For example, will some of the lawmakers elected in reliable Republican seats prove more moderate than their GOP predecessors? 

If Riepe is reelected, would he continue to oppose a change to a winner-take-all system after an election where he’s sharply attacked by Democrats? Would he become more conservative when he no longer has to stand for election in his purple district? 

If Riepe doesn’t win and is no longer there to take the heat for other Republicans who also don’t support the electoral change, will the other squishy senators bend under pressure? 

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As it happens, Cavanaugh’s 9th District in the Legislature is arguably the gravitational center of the Blue Dot — the birthplace of the yard signs that have proliferated across Omaha since 2024. Blue Dot sign 1.0 was spray-painted blue in a garage on South 51st Avenue in Dundee. 

Cavanaugh’s district also is one of the most progressive in the state. Pillen’s own PAC labels it as one of only four in the state it considers a solid Democrat seat. 

But if Cavanaugh is elected to Congress, Pillen would likely be the one appointing the person who would fill the last two years of Cavanaugh’s unexpired term — even if the governor is not reelected in November. The new Congress is sworn in Jan. 3, while Nebraska’s governor is not sworn in until Jan. 7. 

Cavanaugh is well aware of how guarded Omaha Democrats are of their Blue Dot status. His own yard signs vow that he will protect the Blue Dot.

The charge that Cavanaugh is now putting the Blue Dot at risk was first raised last fall by Crystal Rhoades, the Douglas County District Court clerk who is among six Democrats contending in the race to replace retiring Republican Congressman Don Bacon. 

“It was the reason I entered the race,” Rhoades said. She said she felt she was the only candidate experienced enough to compete with Cavanaugh and save the Blue Dot for Democrats. 

But in the past month, the message has been amplified massively, as two progressive super PACs went up with television ads, digital ads and mailings in the 2nd District targeting Cavanaugh on the issue. 

Federal Election Commission records show Omaha-based Fight for Nebraska has spent over $600,000 attacking Cavanaugh and another $1.2 million in support of Powell. Its funding has come from three out-of-state PACs, including the Wyoming-based Way Back PAC, which was a major funder of independent candidate Dan Osborn in his 2024 campaign for Senate in Nebraska. 

New Democrat Majority, a PAC whose website says it is devoted to backing pragmatic, pro-growth candidates they see as the best match to take on Republicans, has spent another $735,000 — all on Cavanaugh attack ads. 

Super PACs can accept unlimited amounts of cash, often labeled dark money because the PACs rarely disclose their donors. 

Cavanaugh’s campaign has blasted the spending in support of “Dark Money Denise.” In an interview, Cavanaugh said the funders behind the ads are trying to scare voters and hide their true objectives. 

“All we do know is that if it was funded by people who actually cared about legislative seats, they’d be spending money on winning legislative seats,” he said. 

Cavanaugh has responded with his own ad that suggests the Blue Dot ads are coming from MAGA Republicans. His ad also suggests Democrats are a lock to gain seats, with Lincoln Sen. George Dungan, who backs Cavanaugh, directly stating, “We know Nebraska Democrats will pick up additional seats this election, securing the Blue Dot.” 

Cavanaugh acknowledged there are no guarantees in elections, but said he is “convinced” there will be Democratic gains, mostly because Democrats have good candidates who fit their district. He also cited the favorable results in recent special elections. 

Cavanaugh also downplayed the threats posed to the Blue Dot and abortion rights. 

Republicans clearly don’t have the votes for the electoral vote change, he said. And he said he thinks Nebraska voters largely settled the abortion issue with their 2024 adoption of a constitutional amendment that mirrored the state’s 2023 law barring abortions after the first trimester. 

Cavanaugh argued that members of the Legislature “view the ballot initiative as being the definitive conversation on that, and that the voters don’t want to see further restrictions.”

However, abortion rights advocates have pointed out that the Legislature is still free to adopt other, stricter abortion restrictions, including the same six-week abortion ban that has passed in other red states. 

Powell said there no doubt would be risk on those issues if Cavanaugh wins and gives up his legislative seat. She said the margins for progressives in the statehouse have always proven thin. 

Four years ago, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe, Powell and the Women Who Run Nebraska PAC she founded worked to elect state senators who would protect abortion rights. 

There were some big wins, she said, but several other key races narrowly went the other way, ultimately allowing the abortion ban to pass.

“We’ve seen legislation pass and fail by a single vote,” Powell said. “And I just don’t know that you can take anything for granted.”

She said voters don’t have to decide between winning the congressional seat and maximizing seats in Lincoln. They can do both. 

The debate over Cavanaugh’s seat also has split progressives within the Legislature. 

Hunt, the left-leaning nonpartisan from Omaha, told Flatwater that the potential loss of the Cavanaugh seat would be “an unforced error” that she wished she’d spoken out against sooner. She believes Republicans in the past two years have focused on fiscal issues as part of a political strategy but will be back soon pushing on the more controversial issues.

Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln, the Legislature’s longest-serving progressive, is backing Cavanaugh. 

She said it’s important this election to both flip the 2nd District seat to help Democrats take control in Congress and to deny Republicans a supermajority in Lincoln. She says Cavanaugh represents Democrats’ best chance to win the Omaha-area congressional seat, and she believes the party also has strong enough candidates to win legislative seats. 

“The ultimate goal is to put together the best firewall we can in Congress and the Legislature,” she said. “We don’t have to pick, but we do have to work.” 

The big dollars spent on the Blue Dot ads have clearly reshaped the race  — the reason the Cavanaugh campaign felt the need to respond with ads of its own and the recent shredding party. Whether the issue proves decisive remains to be seen. 

But one operative said it definitely has grabbed voters’ attention. 

“For Democratic primary voters, this is a gut issue,” one said. “They know it. They understand it. They get it.”