How can Democrats flip Nebraska?

[walleye26]

While statewide is solidly red for the time being, Democrats might have a few openings by the early 2030s if they play their cards right, especially depending how Redistricting goes and if trends continue.

Would Nebraska statewide be competitive if the following conditions happen:
1) The rurals continue to shrink (R’s are maxed out here anyway; some counties vote over 90% R).
2) Omaha and Lincoln continue to grow at a healthy pace, and get a bit bluer.
3) Dems flip Sarpy County (which continues to grow).
4) Dems flip Thurston back, and manage to increase their showing with Hispanics moving in (places like Dakota county).

I would think under this scenario statewide would be pretty close. Douglas + Lancaster + Sarpy are already 56% of the state population, and there’s room to grow in the metros, whereas the R’s can’t grow too much more in the rurals.

[Lambsbread]

Convince a bunch of people to move from Chicago, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee.

[Skill and Chance]

Get college+ white vote truly nationalized.  This would flip NE and KS.  I am bullish on Democrats in the Plains states that have larger cities.  NE/KS/MT are on par with the West Coast and almost as high as the core Northeast in % college graduates!

[walleye26]

Get college+ white vote truly nationalized.  This would flip NE and KS.  I am bullish on Democrats in the Plains states that have larger cities.  NE/KS/MT are on par with the West Coast and almost as high as the core Northeast in % college graduates!

This is kind of what I was thinking. NE and KS are more urban than people would think. ND, SD, WY, and IA just have too large of a rural population that trends don’t matter.

[Torrain]

Easiest option? I guess a Democratic trifecta could try and stimulate business in Omaha, in favourable demographics via tax-cuts or stimulus spending. Basically try and force the same conditions that put Virginia and Georgia in the Democratic column over the last few years.

NE-02 is already centre to centre-left. If they could max out NE-02, and grow the city a bit, surely there would be enough votes to slowly drag the state leftwards.

[Skill and Chance]

Get college+ white vote truly nationalized.  This would flip NE and KS.  I am bullish on Democrats in the Plains states that have larger cities.  NE/KS/MT are on par with the West Coast and almost as high as the core Northeast in % college graduates!

This is kind of what I was thinking. NE and KS are more urban than people would think. ND, SD, WY, and IA just have too large of a rural population that trends don’t matter.

Even OK is a dark horse in the long run, but it's starting from a ridiculously high R baseline and probably enough of the college grads are in petroleum to forestall the national realignment.   

[Roll Roons]

Get college+ white vote truly nationalized.  This would flip NE and KS.  I am bullish on Democrats in the Plains states that have larger cities.  NE/KS/MT are on par with the West Coast and almost as high as the core Northeast in % college graduates!

This is kind of what I was thinking. NE and KS are more urban than people would think. ND, SD, WY, and IA just have too large of a rural population that trends don’t matter.

Even OK is a dark horse in the long run, but it's starting from a ridiculously high R baseline and probably enough of the college grads are in petroleum to forestall the national realignment.   

Don't forget UT.

[Cyrusman]

Convince a bunch of people to move from Chicago, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee.

We’ll if that happened Wisconsin becomes a solid R state so idk how great of a trade off that is.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

This isn’t really a practical goal. Anything they could do to win Nebraska would go further for them in other states.

[Biden his time]

INB4 DaleCooper says the obvious correct answer, stop alienating rural America

[Roll Roons]

INB4 DaleCooper says the obvious answer, stop alienating rural America

I mean, he's not wrong when he says that.

[Crumpets]

Some tech person can build an HQ somewhere like Scottsbluff or North Platte and reach out to college graduates in places like Denver or Chicago to move there instead of the Bay Area to be closer to home and not have to pay ridiculous prices for housing. Omaha is already a quick growing metro in favor of the Democrats. It's just the middle and west parts of the state that make the climb a lot steeper.

[Real Texan Politics]

Turn Omaha and/or Lincoln into "Silicon Plains"

Although the same could be said for Overland Park, Kansas, and the rest of the I-70 corridor between KCK and Topeka or even Manhattan.

[DaleCooper]

Some tech person can build an HQ somewhere like Scottsbluff or North Platte and reach out to college graduates in places like Denver or Chicago to move there instead of the Bay Area to be closer to home and not have to pay ridiculous prices for housing. Omaha is already a quick growing metro in favor of the Democrats. It's just the middle and west parts of the state that make the climb a lot steeper.

Flooding our state with overpaid techies would be a great way to alienate the people here. I'm sure the voters of North Platte would appreciate having a bunch of out-of-state yuppies come and buy up all the housing and work in an air-conditioned office while all the natives have to settle for a job at the meat-packing plant. The fact that the first instinct of Democrats is to import a bunch of affluent people in order to negate the votes of Nebraskans says a lot about how they feel about these parts of the country, and it's part of why they'll never make any meaningful gains in rural America or among those without college degrees anytime soon. Plus, to cite a similar example, Google built a data center in Iowa and Democrats have only declined since then in that state.

Also, keep in mind that while over half the population lives in Douglas, Lancaster, and Sarpy (a county that Republicans still win, by the way), the Democrats will probably need to win something like 70-75% of the vote in these counties in order to make up for how embarrassingly poor they do everywhere else. Until Lincoln and Omaha start voting like San Francisco, Democrats have no shot unless they wake up and realize that they can't afford to take rural America for granted, otherwise they'll have to wait a very long time.

If Democrats really want to win in some of these states, they need to rebrand as an aggressively  Nebraska First (or whatever other state) party and prioritize the needs of people that actually have lives and families here rather than trying to attract a bunch of yuppies at the expense of everyone barely scraping by here. That is something that would definitely resonate if done right.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

INB4 DaleCooper says the obvious answer, stop alienating rural America

I mean, he's not wrong when he says that.

He is. Doing better in rural areas would flip so many states before Nebraska that it would remain incredibly Republican-leaning relative to the nation. You might as well ask how Democrats can win a 40-state landslide.

The last Democratic presidential candidate to win here was LBJ (and before him, Roosevelt). Downballot wins were only possible because of greater ticket-splitting, and the decline of ticket-splitting everywhere cannot be explained away as a function of Democrats alienating rural America.

Just because it is rural and white does not mean it is ancestrally Democratic.

[Crumpets]

Some tech person can build an HQ somewhere like Scottsbluff or North Platte and reach out to college graduates in places like Denver or Chicago to move there instead of the Bay Area to be closer to home and not have to pay ridiculous prices for housing. Omaha is already a quick growing metro in favor of the Democrats. It's just the middle and west parts of the state that make the climb a lot steeper.

Flooding our state with overpaid techies would be a great way to alienate the people here. I'm sure the voters of North Platte would appreciate having a bunch of out-of-state yuppies come and buy up all the housing and work in an air-conditioned office while all the natives have to settle for a job at the meat-packing plant. The fact that the first instinct of Democrats is to import a bunch of affluent people in order to negate the votes of Nebraskans says a lot about how they feel about these parts of the country, and it's part of why they'll never make any meaningful gains in rural America or among those without college degrees anytime soon. Plus, to cite a similar example, Google built a data center in Iowa and Democrats have only declined since then in that state.

The thread title is "how can Democrats flip Nebraska?" not "how can Democrats win the hearts and minds of Nebraskans?" or "How would the Democratic Party look if it were competitive in Nebraska?" Otherwise, my answer would obviously have been different.

Likewise, my answer for "How can Republicans flip California?" would look a lot more like "ethnic cleansing, seizing the assets of all of Silicon Valley, and dictatorial-level control over the voting process" than "rebrand as a pro-immigration and tech-friendly party." In either case it's essentially an impossible task without completely remaking the entire American political system as we know it.

Your point on the Google data center in Iowa is valid, though.

[DaleCooper]

Some tech person can build an HQ somewhere like Scottsbluff or North Platte and reach out to college graduates in places like Denver or Chicago to move there instead of the Bay Area to be closer to home and not have to pay ridiculous prices for housing. Omaha is already a quick growing metro in favor of the Democrats. It's just the middle and west parts of the state that make the climb a lot steeper.

Flooding our state with overpaid techies would be a great way to alienate the people here. I'm sure the voters of North Platte would appreciate having a bunch of out-of-state yuppies come and buy up all the housing and work in an air-conditioned office while all the natives have to settle for a job at the meat-packing plant. The fact that the first instinct of Democrats is to import a bunch of affluent people in order to negate the votes of Nebraskans says a lot about how they feel about these parts of the country, and it's part of why they'll never make any meaningful gains in rural America or among those without college degrees anytime soon. Plus, to cite a similar example, Google built a data center in Iowa and Democrats have only declined since then in that state.

The thread title is "how can Democrats flip Nebraska?" not "how can Democrats win the hearts and minds of Nebraskans?" or "How would the Democratic Party look if it were competitive in Nebraska?" Otherwise, my answer would obviously have been different.

Likewise, my answer for "How can Republicans flip California?" would look a lot more like "ethnic cleansing, seizing the assets of all of Silicon Valley, and dictatorial-level control over the voting process" than "rebrand as a pro-immigration and tech-friendly party." In either case it's essentially an impossible task without completely remaking the entire American political system as we know it.

Your point on the Google data center in Iowa is valid, though.

My point wasn't that your suggestion was too callous, it was that this will drive the already conservative population further to the right and make them hate the Democrats a lot more than they already do. I would also be curious to know how this would impact the political leanings of younger voters. One of the biggest dangers Democrats have with younger voters in these states is that they have no answer for the problem of no one other than well-to-do college grads being able to afford a house that isn't a glorified meth lab. If Democrats become the party of out-of-state people that outbid locals on housing, then they'll be even less competitive here, unless they plan on importing over 150,000 affluent techies. 

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Only if Covid is Eradicated by 2024, but Castro would run against Cruz first before NEB, but that's only if Covid is gone and it probably won't be, it will be gone but, we will still be socially distancing and wearing masks indefinitely

Everyone is going to College on line anyways, there aren't any Dorms open anyways, College now is an on line thing, Ivy League schools and 200K Student Loans unless you are a Doctor or Nurse are a thing of the past

[Sol]

Of course bringing in more rural voters is the place to start here, but tbh Nebraska has some of the most difficult rural voters to scrape away from the right. There's a reason why the closest equivalents to NE all vote for right-wing parties around the world--a farming region with relatively low poverty and ethnic homogeneity is basically the platonic ideal of a conservative place in a comparative context, whether it's