The sleepy start to the race for Nebraska’s Second Congressional District—a vital, ticket-splitting, suburban swing seat—has given way to one of the most dynamic Democratic primaries in the country, following Republican Don Bacon’s announcement earlier this year that he does not intend to seek re-election. The contest is set to defy the tidy progressive-vs.-moderate and establishment-vs.-insurgent narratives that have defined other marquee primary races across the country.
That dynamic was crystallized as state Sen. John Cavanaugh, a scion of a local political dynasty, secured the endorsement of the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC. The endorsement is expected to provide Cavanaugh with a significant fundraising boost, as well as a stamp of credibility that potentially enables him to lock down Omaha’s deceptively large progressive flank. His chief opponent, Denise Powell, a former corporate executive backed by key organs of the party’s national donor class, has been consolidating moderate support in recent weeks to position herself as his main opponent.
This has created a curious split. Cavanaugh, despite his record and the backing of the Progressive Caucus, represents the local party establishment. Meanwhile, Powell, the self-styled outsider, is rapidly becoming the favored candidate of many in the national party’s donor and operative class.
The field is crowded, reflecting the opportunity presented by Bacon’s retirement. On the Democratic side, Cavanaugh and Powell are joined by former Veterans Affairs official Kishla Askins, former Steny Hoyer policy director James Leuschen, and Douglas County District Court Clerk Crystal Rhoades. While the race is still fluid, these candidates face clear barriers to acquiring the funds and name recognition to compete with Powell and Cavanaugh. The Republican primary in Bacon’s absence is a contest between Omaha City Councilor Brinker Harding and former state senator and gubernatorial candidate Brett Lindstrom, in what is also expected to be a hotly contested race.
JOHN CAVANAUGH IS, BY ANY MEASURE, Nebraska Democratic royalty. He currently holds a seat in the state’s unicameral legislature, as does his sister, Machaela Cavanaugh, who has gained national prominence for her savvy legislative tactics and outspoken support for transgender rights in recent sessions. Their father, John J. Cavanaugh III, held this exact congressional seat for Democrats from 1977 to 1981.
Despite the younger Cavanaughs’ progressive leanings, for the state’s Democratic apparatus, the Cavanaugh name still carries weight. This has borne out in John’s early fundraising and endorsements, which feature several old-guard figures like former governors and senators Bob Kerrey and Ben Nelson, as well as Ann Ashford, the wife of moderate Brad Ashford, the last Democrat to win the Second District. Cavanaugh has also secured the support of several local unions and many state and local Democratic officials.
Denise Powell is positioning herself as the outsider. A former corporate executive, Powell’s campaign narrative centers on her post-2016 pivot to activism, founding the PAC Women Who Run, which trains candidates, particularly women, to run for local office. She is crafting her outsider persona not as a populist insurgent, but rather as a pragmatic, culturally liberal, results-oriented leader from the private sector—a profile aimed squarely at the district’s affluent, college-educated suburban voters.
The outcome of the clash will have major implications for the national party. Democrats have spent a decade and tens of millions of dollars failing to oust Don Bacon, cycling through two distinct and equally unsuccessful types of challengers.
First, in 2018 and 2020, came Kara Eastman. Eastman ran as an unapologetic progressive, building her campaigns around Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. She excited the activist base but was famously undermined by elements of both the state and national Democratic establishment. In 2018, the national party pulled its PAC support ahead of Eastman’s eventual narrow loss. In 2020, Ashford, the former Democratic congressman, endorsed Don Bacon ahead of a second narrow Eastman loss. (Brad Ashford was defeated by Eastman in the 2018 primary, and Eastman defeated his wife, Ann Ashford, in the 2020 primary.)
The party took a different approach in 2022 and 2024 by nominating Tony Vargas. A state senator with a more cautious profile, Vargas ran a straightforwardly moderate campaign with full buy-in from national Democratic committees. The strategy was to avoid Eastman’s pitfalls, focusing instead on Bacon’s anti-abortion votes and a by-the-book message. But the result was two similarly agonizing and narrow losses, with Vargas’s campaign ultimately criticized for lacking the energy and bold messaging needed to convert voters who have been splitting their tickets for Bacon for years.
In an interview with the Prospect last week, Cavanaugh presented the contours of a strategy to avoid the pitfalls of both failed approaches. He argued that he has credibility with the progressives whose energy boosted Eastman’s bids, while his family name and personal reputation as a principled but highly amicable and competent legislator can reassure the establishment figures and suburban voters who stuck with Bacon through several tough cycles.
SO FAR, NEITHER CANDIDATE HAS PRESENTED a detailed issues page or staked out bold stances on the typical issues that divide Democratic primary voters. Instead, both have opted for the increasingly common Democratic refrains about lowering costs and protecting health insurance coverage from the deep cuts pursued by the Trump administration.
The endorsement from the CPC is the clearest ideological marker in the race so far. But Cavanaugh expressed hesitation about being defined as the progressive in the race.
“I sometimes shy away from labels like ‘progressive,’” he told the Prospect. “What ‘progressive’ means to me and you and to a suburban Republican in Omaha aren’t always the same thing … making sure that people who work for a living have a chance to get ahead, can buy a house, have health insurance, can afford food. Those are my principles.”
He pointed to his legislative record to explain why national progressives might see him as a natural ally. Cavanaugh has consistently introduced and voted for bills to expand tenant protections, expand green energy, tighten campaign finance laws, protect health and food benefits, and make the Nebraska tax system more progressive. While the Republican supermajority in the legislature has largely declined to help move his proposals, Cavanaugh has frequently touted passage of his bill to eliminate taxes on diapers as proof he can deliver real wins that lower the cost of living for everyday people.
“It doesn’t solve all the problems in life, but this is about finding those ways, both big and small, to make life more affordable for people to lower the cost of groceries,” he said. “Do enough of that, it starts to add up.”
Cavanaugh: “I’m not a person who’s looking for a fight, but I don’t shy away from a fight.”
When asked about whether he felt his campaign needed clearer villains, Cavanaugh demurred. While he emphasized his pledge to not take corporate PAC money and extolled the virtues of Nebraska’s public utilities, he declined to embrace the tactics embraced by candidates like Dan Osborn, whose campaigns have featured fiery rhetoric focused around corporate actors like oligopolistic meatpacking companies.
“I’m not a person who’s looking for a fight, but I don’t shy away from a fight,” he explained. “But we need to stop corporate consolidation and take a hard look at who needs to be broken up,” pointing specifically at the devastation health care consolidation has wrought on rural states and what he described as an increasingly dangerous consolidation of power by tech and news corporations.
“A few companies decide what everybody sees, in pursuit of their own political agendas,” he warned.
While the understated nature of Cavanaugh’s populism might translate well in a general election, it has proven a challenge to his early fundraising, which has lagged behind Powell’s established network. Cavanaugh has raised $330,505, according to the latest FEC filings, compared to Powell’s $741,230.
However, Powell will need the funds in order to build the name recognition necessary to seriously contest the primary. A GBAO poll commissioned by Cavanaugh’s campaign in July 2025 showed Cavanaugh with a commanding, if early, lead in the primary, taking 36 percent of the vote. Powell was at 9 percent, with Crystal Rhoades at 15 percent and a large 29 percent of voters undecided.
A PPP poll from Powell supporters in late October showed that she is still unknown by two-thirds of registered primary voters. That same poll showed Cavanaugh performing slightly better in hypothetical general-election matchups, but the memo claimed that those numbers shift in Powell’s favor after voters are exposed to candidate biographies.
Powell’s positioning, while still developing, is becoming increasingly clear through her endorsements. She has received backing from Tony Vargas and a small but growing list of state and local Democratic officials. Perhaps more telling, she has secured the backing of national PACs like BOLD PAC and EMILYs List and, crucially, former New Hampshire Rep. Ann Kuster, onetime chair of the centrist and corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition. This coalition points to a campaign that will be well funded by organizations that are often in lockstep with national party leaders.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has not formally backed either candidate at this time, though a source familiar says both have been invited to speak with the DCCC in recent weeks. (A spokesperson for Denise Powell did not respond to a request for an interview or answers to a written list of questions.)
Regardless of whether the national party’s official neutrality lasts, the race is shaping up to be a novel showdown between two unique coalitions: the local establishment and populist progressives on one side, and the national donor and operative class and committed moderates on the other.