Don Bacon defeated Kara Eastman Tuesday in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District.
“We won an overwhelming victory tonight,” Bacon told the Omaha World-Herald Wednesday. “It was the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. If I was a lemon, I squeezed every drop of lemon juice out of my body and my brain and my heart.”
The race, a rematch from 2018, was a referendum on whether Omaha and its surrounding suburbs would remain red. In that race, Bacon, a Republican, scored a victory over Eastman, a Democrat, 51% to 49%. Bacon eked out a similarly narrow victory in 2016, beating his opponent by just 1 point.
Bacon’s seat was considered one of the most vulnerable for Republicans. In the week leading up to the election, Bacon expressed concerns about the closeness of the race.
“Best data I have, I’m up within the margin of error,” Bacon told KMTV. “I’m just being candid. I wish I was up 10. … I’m an Air Force guy. I don’t want close fights.”
A New York Times poll conducted about a month before the election showed Bacon leading by 2 points.
Eastman, who ran as an “independent” voice for Omaha, secured her nomination after running hard on a Medicare for All platform in the Democratic primary. Throughout the race, she has characterized Bacon as captive to the Republican establishment.
A month before the election, Bacon’s 2016 Democratic rival Brad Ashford endorsed Bacon, saying that Nebraska needs “unifiers, not dividers, in Congress.” Ashford lost to Eastman in the 2018 Democratic primary.
“We need to send Don Bacon back to Congress to work across the aisle to meet the challenges we face as a state and a nation,” Ashford said. “He has demonstrated time and again that he will put people above party to find bipartisan solutions.”
