2024 Leaner Deep Dive and Forecast: Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District
Topic: 2024 Election Forecast
NEBRASKA’S 2nd CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Basic Election Facts
2024 Electoral Votes: 1
Population (2020 Census): 658,116
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Partisanship
U.S. House Delegation: 1 Republican
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Ethnic Demographics (2020 census)
White: 67.8%
Black: 9.8%
Latino: 12.8%
Other: 9.4%
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Presidential History since 1992
Times Republican: 6
Last: Donald Trump, 2016, +2.2%
Times Democrat: 2
Last: Joe Biden, 2020, +6.5%
Presidential Election Characteristics
· Nebraska and Maine are the only two states that split their electoral votes. Nebraska’s statewide electoral votes (two), and the single electoral votes belonging to NE-1 and NE-3 will go to Trump handily, by safe and blowout margins, respectively. Nebraska’s electors have been split since the 1992 election.
· NE-2 has been redrawn several times since it became its own presidential election entity. The most recent redraw went into effect in January 2023 and still includes all of Douglas County (core Omaha), reduces Sarpy County to just the southwestern portion, and adds all of Saunders County, which is west of Omaha.
· The district is nearly 98% urban and owing to its presence in the Great Plains region, still two-thirds white. It was thought of a reliable Republican electoral vote prior to 2008, when Barack Obama narrowly flipped it against John McCain, but has been competitive since, with Trump barely holding it in 2016, and dropping it in 2020, although substantial disparity exists in that race.
Looking Back
I wrote about Nebraska’s forgotten electoral vote two years ago, and because it is difficult to analyze a divided county (Sarpy County), it is harder for me to make a conclusion for what a precise margin for 2020 should be (and whether Trump won it, or narrowly lost it). One thing I do know, is that Trump’s 2020 performance, while not Reaganesque, looks like it should at least be in the ballpark to hold the electoral vote, not get blown out by over 22,000 ballots.
Of course, this is how things turned out, with the vote called in passing while everyone was watching a tumultuous Election Night unfold:
I have a very lenient estimate of 13,062 likely fraudulent ballots in Douglas County, and 9,647 ballots in Sarpy County as a whole, which would still give the district to Biden by a hair, although I am confident I am light in my Douglas County estimate. Here is the precinct mapping for Sarpy County, with each precinct in red looking like it has at least 150 or more likely fraudulent ballots:
All precincts south and west of the bold black line on the above map were in NE-2 in 2016 and 2020, as were others east and north of it before the most recent redraw, with none rating low for statistical indication of election manipulation. Trump gained almost 20% in net new votes over the 2016 election in the previous Sarpy NE-2 cut, when he had gained just 1,734 votes over Romney, losing both margin of victory as a percentage and in the net vote count. Joe Biden on the other hand, picked up 13,173 ballots in Sarpy County over Clinton, with 9,232 of them coming in the much more Republican and “Trumpy” western portion of the country. Joe Biden essentially outgained Trump and his massive vote increase in the NE-2 portion of Sarpy County for net new votes by a rate of roughly 1.5:1.
Note: Romney’s race in NE-2 include a different allotment of precincts in Sarpy County. The above graphic reconstructs the precincts as found in 2016 and 2020.
So, yes, there is substantial indication of election manipulation evident in the NE-2 portion of Sarpy County, and one must wonder just why it is there if not to ensure that Trump lost his grip on an electoral vote that, at least in 2020, did not turn out to be decisive. That may not be the case in 2024.
Looking Forward
My father used to tell a terrible, unfunny joke about a fictional man he said he knew in the Army. His name was Harry Henderschitt. Apparently, that surname was so bad that he received nonstop ridicule for it, and it prompted him to change his name. Everyone at the table would lean in and wonder what new name he picked, and Dad would belt out, “Peter Henderschitt!”
Well, this is basically what Nebraska’s unicameral legislature did to own itself in the 2022 session. Rather than extending safe Republican NE-1 into insurmountable Republican NE-3, which makes up the overwhelming land mass of Nebraska and reaches into the westernmost hinterlands of the state, and then dicing up Douglas County or extending NE-2 beyond Saunders County and into NE-1, the legislature amputated reliable Republican margins from Sarpy County, retained all of Douglas County, and added just Saunders County. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and haven’t corrected this issue yet by just returning the state to a winner-take-all format.
Douglas County accounted for 81.4% of all counted ballots in NE-2 last presidential election, and will likely finish around that mark in 2024, as well, given very little population growth in Saunders, and predictable growth in itself and in Sarpy. Saunders County helps a little bit, and is due for a margin of roughly 7,000 for Trump, which will basically neutralize the election fraud in Sarpy County, if it presents at the same magnitude as in 2020, meaning Douglas County is going to carry the field.
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Assessment
June 30, 2024
Polling and Modeling
· 538 expects Biden to carry the district with 69% likelihood as of the time of this writing, and by an average of 4.0%, though 9.6% of the vote is not accounted for between the two major party nominees.
· The Economist forecast has a similar projection, pegging Biden for a 2% victory margin, and giving him a 64% chance of winning it.
· Steve Cortes’ outfit has Biden +5% in the district, 42-37%, in a poll released in May.
Party Registration Data
· Douglas County
2020 Election: D+3.13% (+11,683 Democrat registration lead)
5/24/2024: D+1.35% (+4,773 Democrat registration lead)
· Sarpy County
2020 Election: R+17.05% (+20,820 Republican registration lead)
5/24/2024: R+18.95% (+23,143 Republican registration lead)
· Saunders County
2020 Election: R+37.17% (+5,868 Republican registration lead)
5/24/2024: R+46.95% (+7,413 Republican registration lead)
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Keshel Forecast
June 30, 2024
Biden +<5%
I am not feeling bullish on NE-2, even though party registrations are favorable. It is not possible for me to discern party registration in the NE-2 portion of Sarpy County, though it is most certainly favorable to Trump given that the eastern half hasn’t caused a countywide Democrat lean yet, and the southwestern portion of the county (what remains in NE-2) is much more Republican.
Saunders County doesn’t get the job done and most likely won’t, and can’t, deliver a margin of much more than 7,000 votes based on its population and trend, which is right leaning. This race is down to Douglas County, which will account for roughly 4 of every 5 ballots counted, and the only way I can see Trump winning the district if existing manipulation is available for Biden is to run substantially far ahead of his own numbers with not only the significant population of urban blacks and Latinos in the county, but especially with suburban moderates who have no issue electing a dirtbag like Don Bacon, NE-2’s current Republican U.S. House Representative and Ukraine lapdog who compares the MAGA movement to Nazism.
This race will likely finish within five points, and I concur with 538 and The Economist, here at the end of June 2024, that this race favors Biden, but isn’t a layup. I think Trump has about a 1 in 3 chance to carry it, and this forecast may tighten in the next four months. The danger of Biden carrying NE-2 comes if Trump carries Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, but isn’t permitted to carry Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. He would be stuck at 268 electoral votes, and this single vote from NE-2 would prevent 269-269 tie to Trump’s disadvantage.
How Trump Can Win
Run up the margins in Sarpy and Saunders County, which will be hard to do if plagued with election fraud (especially Sarpy, which is much smaller in the redrawn district).
Lose Douglas County by no more than 15,000 votes, which may afford a small window for victory if Trump outperforms in the remainder of NE-2.
Special thank you to Elliott Bottorf for helping prepare the data for NE-2's analysis.
Link to All Other Analysis
