Joe Biden is beating President Trump in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, according to a new internal poll.
Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, leads the White House incumbent in the district that covers Omaha, 51% to 44%, internal polling by GQR released Monday found.
Biden’s 7-percentage-point advantage puts him in a good stead to pick up at least one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes in November.
Nebraska and Maine are the only states in the Electoral College that aren’t “winner takes all.” And in a close election even a single electoral vote can make a difference in getting to a majority of 270 out of 538.
In Nebraska, two votes are awarded to the statewide popular vote winner, while another three are apportioned to the winner of its respective congressional districts. Trump swept the state in 2016, as did 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. But four years earlier, eventual President Barack Obama was able to take one vote from 2008 GOP standard-bearer John McCain.
GQR conducted the poll for 2nd Congressional District Democratic candidate Kara Eastman. She is a liberal nonprofit organization consultant who, for instance, endorses Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for all” proposal and has highlighted her own healthcare industry experience in her bids.
Last cycle, she lost her initial race against sitting Republican Rep. Don Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general first elected in 2016, by only 2 points or about 5,000 votes. She achieved that result without the full-throated support of House Democrats’ campaign arm. Two years later, she’ll have their backing.
But despite spending the primary criticizing Bacon and Trump, Eastman’s trailing the incumbent in the fundraising stakes. Bacon has $764,883 cash on hand to her $98,817, financial documents disclosed in May reveal.
GQR surveyed 502 likely Nebraska voters between June 30 and July 5 for the poll. Its findings have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.37 points.
