A progressive candidate running on Medicare-for-all beat a former US Congress member in the Democratic primary for a crucial 2018 House election in Nebraska.
Medicare-for-all progressive woman wins surprise victory in a key Nebraska House primary
Kara Eastman will face Republican incumbent Don Bacon in the Nebraska Second Congressional District in a crucial election.
Dylan Scott covers health for Vox, guiding readers through the emerging opportunities and challenges in improving our health. He has reported on health policy for more than 10 years, writing for Governing magazine, Talking Points Memo, and STAT before joining Vox in 2017.
Kara Eastman, president of a local nonprofit, narrowly prevailed over former Rep. Brad Ashford in the Democratic primary in Nebraska’s Second Congressional District. Ashford had been elected to the seat in 2014, though he lost it to Republican Don Bacon in 2016. He had received public support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
Nebraska requires a recount if the margin of victory is narrower than 1 percent of the leading candidate’s vote total. Eastman has about 20,000 votes and leads by more than 1,000 votes, which would appear to be outside that recount margin, at last count.
Her win marks a significant victory for the single-payer health care push within the Democratic Party: one of its proponents prevailing over a well-known quasi-incumbent with Democratic voters and still likely able to contend in a competitive general election.
Who is Kara Eastman?
Eastman started the Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance in Omaha before running for office. She was endorsed by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a lefty national grassroots group, and the national Justice Democrats during the primary.
She notably endorsed Medicare-for-all in this district, Omaha and the surrounding area, which is much more of a swing region than the rest of Nebraska. Without naming Ashford, her campaign ad said that she was the only candidate in the race who supported universal health care. (Though, as BuzzFeed documented, it’s not clear what Democratic voters here think when they hear that a candidate supports Medicare-for-all.)
“I’m tired of hearing Democrats don’t have a backbone, that we don’t stand for anything,” Eastman says in the ad. “That changes now.”
Eastman also supports universal background checks, overturning Citizens United, raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and decriminalizing marijuana. She is one of the many women winning Democratic primaries this cycle.
The Nebraska Second Congressional District 2018 election, briefly explained
Though the DCCC did put its brand behind Ashford, which makes Eastman’s win something of a loss for Washington Democrats, the Second District should still be competitive.
Incumbent Republican Rep. Don Bacon beat Ashford in 2016 by a single percentage point, and this district has a history of narrow elections. Voters here elected Ashford by 3 points in 2014. Donald Trump won here by just 2 percentage points in 2016.
Cook and the other major election prognosticators think this is a toss-up, maybe Lean Republican race in 2018. It could be a pivotal pickup in the Democratic bid to flip 24 seats and take back the House this fall.
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