OMAHA — Business and nonprofit consultant Denise Powell beat two elected officials who had been on Omaha-area ballots for years, surviving a heated, six-person primary that Democratic voters in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District hadn’t seen in years.
Powell won partly because her campaign and outside groups aligned with her outraised and outspent her competitors on television, digital, direct mail and handbill advertising. These ads introduced her as a “fighter” and stressed the potential risk to Democratic priorities in the statehouse of electing her top competitor, the scion of a local political dynasty, State Sen. John Cavanaugh, because Republican Gov. Jim Pillen would pick his replacement. They also helped her pass Douglas County District Court Clerk Crystal Rhoades, a former member of the Nebraska Public Service Commission.
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Powell, according to the latest fundraising numbers before the primary, raised $1.6 million. Cavanaugh raised $1.1 million. Rhoades raised $172,768. Multiple PACs combined to spend more than $5 million in the NE-02 primary, mostly supporting Powell or opposing Cavanaugh, according to Nebraska Public Media.
Powell, when asked after the election how she overcame the name-identification advantages of Cavanaugh and Rhoades, said last week, “It doesn’t hurt to have your face blasted all over TV a million times a day.” She also said her team did a lot of personal outreach to voters where they were, in person, by text and by phone.
Randall Adkins, a University of Nebraska at Omaha political science professor who has studied congressional campaigns, said, “Money doesn’t automatically mean somebody wins. It just makes them competitive.”
To him, the bigger factor in the 2nd District Democratic primary was Powell and Powell-aligned groups amplifying the effectiveness of Rhoades’ previously expressed concerns about possibly losing the Democratic-leaning “blue dot” in presidential elections or seeing abortion rights erode further if Cavanaugh was elected. Polling during the primary indicated that the issue mattered deeply to likely Democratic primary voters.
“I’d say the message about Cavanaugh’s [legislative] seat,” Adkins said. “In an election this close you can’t say anything hinges on one issue, but the introduction of that issue in the race becomes a very important factor.”
Cavanaugh’s team fought back against the ad by arguing that its premise was flawed, that Democratic momentum meant more legislative seats could be won and that Republicans in the officially nonpartisan Legislature already had a supermajority — one that, admittedly, doesn’t always vote as a bloc.
Much of the oxygen in the last few weeks of the primary was Cavanaugh pushing back against those concerns. He called it “Republican talking point.”
He also tried to shift attention to Powell’s fundraising, questioning how and why a relative political newcomer could gain access to the amount of fundraising she and Powell-aligned outside groups were able to marshal. He did not return a call or a text seeking comment for this story.
Now, in a regional race that could determine which party controls the U.S. House, Republicans say they hope to turn the fundraising advantage that helped Powell close the gap in the primary into a political liability.
GOP nominee Brinker Harding, an Omaha City Council member, his campaign team and aligned groups of his own have said they will keep painting Powell with the “Dark Money Denise” nickname Cavanaugh gave her and highlight some of her campaign’s supporters.
Democrats and Republicans alike have each poured millions of dollars in outside money into recent 2nd District races. As recently as 2024, backers of retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Don Bacon and Democratic State Sen. Tony Vargas spent more than $21 million combined in outside money on the race, according to OpenSecrets.org, a nonprofit that tracks congressional race fundraising.
Adkins said he wonders how much differently the race would have gone without Cavanaugh or Rhoades in it, or if Cavanaugh had resigned earlier from his legislative seat. Adkins said he thinks Cavanaugh or Rhoades targeted many of the same voters.
Rhoades said the risk of Cavanaugh leaving the Legislature was one of the reasons she ran. Rhoades came in third, with roughly 14% of the vote. The district court clerk, who moonlights as one of the Democrats’ top local political consultants, said preventing that seat from going to Pillen was a priority.
“The results clearly show it was equally important to a majority of Democrats … I’m glad I could help,” Rhoades said.
She also said voters were “primed with constant messages that the only measure of viability was fundraising totals … then they were subjected to more than $5 million in ads in the last couple of weeks leading up to the election.”
“It became a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Rhoades said.
Powell, at her post-election news conference, said she sees a path for Democrats to come together. Most of the top-polling candidates expressed support for whoever wins the primary. Republicans have hinted that some resentment might still linger into the fall.
Cavanaugh, in his concession statement last week, said, “While the result of the NE-02 primary wasn’t what we hoped … I want to thank everyone who has made this campaign possible — over 100 volunteers, 13+ labor unions, hardworking Nebraskans who powered this campaign and my family.”
In a hint of frustration about the influence of money in the race, State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha, in a Facebook post last week, congratulated Katie Weitz, President of Weitz Family Foundation and a top Powell donor, for “buying an election.”
“It’s time the robber barons got their due,” Machaela Cavanaugh’s post read, with a hint of sarcasm. “Let’s embrace the 1%.”
Powell has already pivoted to the general election in one of the most heated primaries for this year’s midterms, with national cable TV appearances. She now faces the task of defining herself before the GOP and conservative outside groups do it for her. Adkins, the professor, said that because Powell hasn’t held office, she needs to introduce herself to the broader electorate.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has already echoed attacks from Cavanaugh’s team, emphasizing the help she has received from outside groups.
Powell, in a possible hint of how she could respond, said, “I think when folks understand where our support comes from, it changes the tone and tenor of the conversation.”
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s BOLD PAC, Women Vote, Elect Democratic Women, EMILY’s List and The Bench have supported and endorsed Powell. Outside groups aligned with national Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, also spent money against Cavanaugh during the primary.
Powell, who helped co-found the political action committee Women Who Run, which trained potential candidates, said she expected Republicans to come out “guns blazing” to paint a narrative about her, but she pointed to the “incredible support” in her corner.
“So now it’s my job as the Democratic nominee to show people who I really am and make sure that people understand why I’m in this race,” Powell said.
Powell also helped with recent Nebraska ballot initiatives seeking to codify the right to an abortion, which failed, and to repeal a publicly funded voucher program for private K-12 schools, an effort that succeeded.
“We knew going into this that [name recognition] was going to be a hurdle that we needed to figure out how to overcome,” Powell said. “I did not have the name recognition because for the last decade, the work that I’ve been doing has been behind the scenes intentionally. So I never ever saw myself running for office, certainly not for a seat of this magnitude … But I decided to get in because … we need someone who has been at the forefront of some of the toughest fights in this state.”
Her general election opponent, Harding, has already started trying to paint Powell as an outsider. Harding said at his watch party last week that the choice facing 2nd District voters is whether Omaha wants to make its own choice or risk becoming Zohran Mamdani’s New York or Gavin Newsom’s California. He emphasized his opposition to surgeries for minors who are trans and men playing in women’s sports.
Harding’s campaign has said he aims to excite the Republican base with red-meat issues. The approach is slightly different from retiring GOP U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, who aimed squarely at the independent-minded voters in the middle who often decide 2nd District races. But local political observers have said he may need to excite the base in an off-year election in which Democrats have more energy.
The general election is Nov 3.
Examiner Editor-in-chief Aaron Sanderford contributed to this report.
This story is provided by States Newsroom, a nonprofit state news network and Blox Digital content partner.
