A Little Blue Dot Is Irritating Nebraska’s GOP
Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton greets supporters as she arrives at a Town Hall rally at Sokol Auditorium December 16, 2015 in Omaha, Nebraska.
Photographer: Steve Pope/Getty ImagesNebraska Democrats love talking about the Blue Dot. Formally known as the 2nd Congressional District, the Blue Dot hugs the state’s eastern border with Iowa, encompassing Omaha and its suburbs—an outpost of liberalism in an otherwise red state. In 2008 voters in the Dot went for Barack Obama while the rest of the state backed John McCain. Because Nebraska splits its electoral votes by congressional district, Obama got one from the Dot, becoming the first Democrat to win an electoral vote in the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
Obama failed to repeat his victory in 2012, when Republican Mitt Romney carried the Dot by seven points, thanks in part to redistricting that shifted many black and Latino voters into the 1st Congressional District, making the Dot much less reliably blue.