Election forecaster shifts Bacon district in Nebraska toward Democrat

The election forecaster Sabato’s Crystal Ball announced Monday it shifted Rep. Don Bacon’s (R-Neb.) race in Nebraska toward the Democrats.

Kyle Kondik, the managing editor for Sabato’s Crystal Ball, part of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, shifted Bacon’s race in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District from “toss-up” to “leans Democratic,” noting a flurry of recent polling showing Vice President Harris leading former President Trump in the district in addition to surveys showing Bacon behind his Democratic challenger.

Kondik pointed to polling from The New York Times/Siena College showing Bacon trailing Democratic state Sen. Tony Vargas by 3 points, a CNN/SSRS poll showing Bacon behind Vargas by 6 points and a Split Ticket/SurveyUSA survey also showing Bacon 6 points behind Vargas. Vargas’s lead falls within the margin of error for each poll.

Kondik also noted several Democratic-sponsored polls showed Vargas outperforming Bacon.

“Nonpartisan House polling is generally very hard to come by, so it’s fairly rare to get not just one nonpartisan poll of a district, let alone several within roughly a month (New York Times, CNN, and SurveyUSA), all showing the incumbent trailing,” Kondik wrote.

“So we are moving this House race from Toss-up to Leans Democratic. Our justification here is somewhat similar to the logic we applied when we moved the Montana Senate race from Toss-up to Leans Republican a few weeks ago—the bulk of the available data pointed to Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) being down, and he already was in a tough spot based on the partisan makeup of the state he is defending,” he continued.

“We could make the same argument about Bacon—he is likely behind, and he’s running in a district that leans to the Democrats for president, albeit not by as much as Montana itself leans to the Republicans for president,” Kondik added. “Bacon winning would be less of a surprise than Tester winning, but their situations seem somewhat comparable.”

A separate nonpartisan election handicapper, Cook Political Report, however, still rates Bacon’s seat as a toss-up.

Kondik noted Bacon has narrowly won reelection before. Vargas ran against Bacon last cycle and lost to the House Republican by more than 2 points. Either way, Bacon’s seat will be heavily contested as it represents among a group of battleground House districts that will determine the road to the majority in November.