Lincoln, Nebraska mayoral election

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I only know of this election because my work's VPN is routed through Lincoln and thus when required to watch YouTube videos I've seen ads for it. But it looks interesting.

The incumbent is Leirion Gaylor Baird. The election is officially nonpartisan but everyone knows that Baird is a Democrat and she hasn't shyed away from that fact. The "primary" occurred on April 4, where Baird and two Republicans ran, with the top two advancing to the general election. That will be Baird and former State Senator Suzanne Geist who again, is running in a formally nonpartisan election but is very much known to be a Republican.

Now here's where it's kind of interesting: Geist has a very extensive record of opposing abortion and sponsored many anti-abortion bills in the Nebraska Senate, though abortion bans have ran into procedural roadblocks in Nebraska Geist had always been one of the top advocates for them in the unicameral Senate until her resignation.

And even though the office has probably little to do with this, Baird has pushed this in her ads:

 (that's one I recently saw.)

So as far as the first round went, Baird oh so narrowly fell short of 50%, with 49.8%, meaning Republicans technically got 50.2%, although I think this puts her in a pretty good spot especially as there's always weirdos who like to vote for an underdog or some Republicans who probably prefer Baird to Geist. So my prediction is this is probably around Lean to Likely Baird but depends a lot on turnout of course. General election is May 2. Should be interesting to watch.

[Duke of York]

I think Baird is probably the favorite.

Seems odd to bring abortion into a municipal election as there is nothing whatsoever a mayor can do about it. You could highlight other extreme positions.

[DaleCooper]

I'd be very surprised if Baird loses.

[Senator Incitatus]

I think Baird is probably the favorite.

Seems odd to bring abortion into a municipal election as there is nothing whatsoever a mayor can do about it. You could highlight other extreme positions.

Mayors actually have a lot of sway (usually informal, but it obviously varies) over things like zoning which tend to affect (or even dictate in practice) abortion and other morality issues.

[Pollster]

Baird is an excellent politician - I polled for one of her opponents in the past and she was uniquely challenging to run against. It's a shame that the state she lives in is fairly prohibitive for her, future-wise. Maybe she can wait out trends in NE-1.

[Sol]

Baird is an excellent politician - I polled for one of her opponents in the past and she was uniquely challenging to run against. It's a shame that the state she lives in is fairly prohibitive for her, future-wise. Maybe she can wait out trends in NE-1.

I don't know Nebraska politics but it doesn't seem like electing a Democratic governor would be too impossible given the right environment. It's basically slightly more Republican Kansas, and if Baird is as good a candidate as you say she could certainly rise to that challenge.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Baird won 54.3-45.7.

[Vosem]

Baird is an excellent politician - I polled for one of her opponents in the past and she was uniquely challenging to run against. It's a shame that the state she lives in is fairly prohibitive for her, future-wise. Maybe she can wait out trends in NE-1.

I don't know Nebraska politics but it doesn't seem like electing a Democratic governor would be too impossible given the right environment. It's basically slightly more Republican Kansas, and if Baird is as good a candidate as you say she could certainly rise to that challenge.

Kansas took a pretty strange confluence of factors, though -- you needed an unusually unpopular Republican candidate in Kobach, and a center-right independent spoiler, and then Kelly being quite popular in office, and a campaign unusually focused on the issue of abortion, only for Kelly to win twice with pluralities.

On the other hand, Nebraska is definitely trending Democratic and strikes me as doing so in a more sustainable way than Kansas, since it has an actual growing urban center while KS is more dependent on the vagaries of suburban trends. (OTOH, I checked the actual census.gov data and it appears that I may be wrong: in the 2020s Johnson County KS has been growing while Douglas County NE has actually shrunk; the reason KS is shrinking as a whole while NE is growing is that NE has much healthier rural trends for some reason*. So maybe KS is actually urbanizing faster, but if it is that's happening in a weird and counterintuitive way.)

OTOH Lancaster County NE is estimated to be growing faster than the US as a whole. So Baird winning here makes a decent amount of sense. (Many of these projections have gotten a decent amount of criticism, such as the idea that Manhattan has lost 6% of its population between 2020 and 2022**, so you can take that with a grain of salt, I guess.)

*Probably not a state-by-state artifact since this was also actually the case during the 2010s.

**My suspicion is that it was overestimated in 2020 as part of a general phenomenon wherein the Census overestimated Northern metropolitan areas, but the counterpoint here, and one that Xahar has defended lucidly, is that the ACS has become much less reliable in the recent past and that ACS figures underestimate urban areas more broadly. (The suggestion that Manhattan has lost 6% of its population over 2 years is clearly silly -- those are collapse numbers -- but the idea that Manhattan wasn't as populous as expected in 2020 seems much more reasonable.) I think this is unlikely -- for example in California there is a great deal of agreement between ACS figures and estimates made on the California state level -- but it's possible. From a political standpoint, this is what supporters of the Democratic party should be hoping for.

[DaleCooper]

Baird won 54.7-46.3.

That's almost exactly what she won by in 2019, but with much higher turnout this year. Democrats also held all their City Council seats. From what I've read and heard from family who live in Lincoln, the Republicans tried to attack the mayor for being soft on crime, citing increases in criminal activity in the city. The mayor painted her opponent as a radical conservative, claiming she was too extreme for Lincoln. All this just reinforces my opinion that Republicans are failing to win back any of the voters they lost during and after Trump. Smaller cities like Lincoln are what will absolutely kill Republicans in years to come.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Baird won 54.7-46.3.

That's 101%.

[DaleCooper]

Baird won 54.7-46.3.

That's 101%.

If you do the math with the current votes reported, it should be more like 54.3 - 45.7.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Baird won 54.7-46.3.

That's 101%.

Source tabulated it wrong. corrected.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Baird won 54.3-45.7.

Slay

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Baird won 54.7-46.3.

That's almost exactly what she won by in 2019, but with much higher turnout this year. Democrats also held all their City Council seats. From what I've read and heard from family who live in Lincoln, the Republicans tried to attack the mayor for being soft on crime, citing increases in criminal activity in the city. The mayor painted her opponent as a radical conservative, claiming she was too extreme for Lincoln. All this just reinforces my opinion that Republicans are failing to win back any of the voters they lost during and after Trump. Smaller cities like Lincoln are what will absolutely kill Republicans in years to come.

It's worth noting that in the whole "Trump era" there's only been one year when such voters repulsed by Trump showed a large willingness to vote for Republicans (aside from obvious special cases like Phill Scott and Larry Hogan): 2021. And that's largely explained by Covid fatigue, Republicans were calling for a complete return to normalcy while some mask mandates and school closures were still happening, once those went away the issue did as well and Republican success evaporated (Republicans still tried to run on this in 2022 but were quite unsuccessful because by November no one cared anymore.)

There's another factor though that I think is overlooked: 2021 was the year since 2015 where Trump was the least prominent. He was banned from social media, didn't have Truth Social up yet and the media and greater society mostly treated him as a persona non grata. Even Republican officeholders were mostly over him aside from obvious kooks like MTG. A lot of people did expect him to run again in 2024, but that was still pretty far away, and Trump had no real platform...he just wasn't an effective boogeyman. Furthermore neither Glenn Youngkin or no other notable Republican candidates at the time embraced election denialism or any of the kookier aspects of "Trumpism". But in 2022 not only did Trump return to prominence, the GOP decided to basically double down on that stuff...and we all saw what happened in an election with some of the most favorable macro conditions for them since WWII.

[DaleCooper]

Baird won 54.7-46.3.

That's almost exactly what she won by in 2019, but with much higher turnout this year. Democrats also held all their City Council seats. From what I've read and heard from family who live in Lincoln, the Republicans tried to attack the mayor for being soft on crime, citing increases in criminal activity in the city. The mayor painted her opponent as a radical conservative, claiming she was too extreme for Lincoln. All this just reinforces my opinion that Republicans are failing to win back any of the voters they lost during and after Trump. Smaller cities like Lincoln are what will absolutely kill Republicans in years to come.

It's worth noting that in the whole "Trump era" there's only been one year when such voters repulsed by Trump showed a large willingness to vote for Republicans (aside from obvious special cases like Phill Scott and Larry Hogan): 2021. And that's largely explained by Covid fatigue, Republicans were calling for a complete return to normalcy while some mask mandates and school closures were still happening, once those went away the issue did as well and Republican success evaporated (Republicans still tried to run on this in 2022 but were quite unsuccessful because by November no one cared anymore.)

There's another factor though that I think is overlooked: 2021 was the year since 2015 where Trump was the least prominent. He was banned from social media, didn't have Truth Social up yet and the media and greater society mostly treated him as a persona non grata. Even Republican officeholders were mostly over him aside from obvious kooks like MTG. A lot of people did expect him to run again in 2024, but that was still pretty far away, and Trump had no real platform...he just wasn't an effective boogeyman. Furthermore neither Glenn Youngkin or no other notable Republican candidates at the time embraced election denialism or any of the kookier aspects of "Trumpism". But in 2022 not only did Trump return to prominence, the GOP decided to basically double down on that stuff...and we all saw what happened in an election with some of the most favorable macro conditions for them since WWII.

This is all very good analysis. I think you're right that the Republicans' decision to put Trump front and center and publicly worship him again is a large part of why they're having so many problems. In hindsight, back in 2021 it really did seem like Trump was a thing of the past. Even the looming threat of him running again was overshadowed by all the drama surrounding the Build Back Better stuff in Congress, as well as relatively normal people like Youngkin winning.

Once 2022 got under way it became clear that the Republican Party as a whole was doubling down on "All Trump, all the time," plus we got the Dobbs decision and the subsequent Republican commitment to pursuing some of the most extreme conservative horsesh-t that this country has seen in generations. Even the cancel culture issue, which I still maintain was and might still be a very seriously problem for Democrats, has been completely overshadowed by Republican book bans and other anti-1st Amendment legislation. All of the concerns about parental rights have been overshadowed by Republican opposition to parental rights. Any concerns about how much money the US is sending to Ukraine is overshadowed by the GOP base's outright support of Putin. They've completely squandered anything that could've possibly been a winning issue for them. (It also should be noted that Democrats seem to have learned their lesson from 2021.)

All of that Republican extremism actually has motivated the worst of their base. I don't believe that Trump supporters and other conservatives are refusing to come out and vote unless he's on the ballot. Republican turnout remains pretty impressive. The issue is that the conservative overreach has terrified an entire horde of people to vote straight-ticket Democrat in every single local, county, state, and federal election. That's not going away.

[Pollster]

Baird won 54.7-46.3.

That's almost exactly what she won by in 2019, but with much higher turnout this year. Democrats also held all their City Council seats. From what I've read and heard from family who live in Lincoln, the Republicans tried to attack the mayor for being soft on crime, citing increases in criminal activity in the city. The mayor painted her opponent as a radical conservative, claiming she was too extreme for Lincoln. All this just reinforces my opinion that Republicans are failing to win back any of the voters they lost during and after Trump. Smaller cities like Lincoln are what will absolutely kill Republicans in years to come.

It's worth noting that in the whole "Trump era" there's only been one year when such voters repulsed by Trump showed a large willingness to vote for Republicans (aside from obvious special cases like Phill Scott and Larry Hogan): 2021. And that's largely explained by Covid fatigue, Republicans were calling for a complete return to normalcy while some mask mandates and school closures were still happening, once those went away the issue did as well and Republican success evaporated (Republicans still tried to run on this in 2022 but were quite unsuccessful because by November no one cared anymore.)

There's another factor though that I think is overlooked: 2021 was the year since 2015 where Trump was the least prominent. He was banned from social media, didn't have Truth Social up yet and the media and greater society mostly treated him as a persona non grata. Even Republican officeholders were mostly over him aside from obvious kooks like MTG. A lot of people did expect him to run again in 2024, but that was still pretty far away, and Trump had no real platform...he just wasn't an effective boogeyman. Furthermore neither Glenn Youngkin or no other notable Republican candidates at the time embraced election denialism or any of the kookier aspects of "Trumpism". But in 2022 not only did Trump return to prominence, the GOP decided to basically double down on that stuff...and we all saw what happened in an election with some of the most favorable macro conditions for them since WWII.

This is all very good analysis. I think you're right that the Republicans' decision to put Trump front and center and publicly worship him again is a large part of why they're having so many problems. In hindsight, back in 2021 it really did seem like Trump was a thing of the past. Even the looming threat of him running again was overshadowed by all the drama surrounding the Build Back Better stuff in Congress, as well as relatively normal people like Youngkin winning.

Once 2022 got under way it became clear that the Republican Party as a whole was doubling down on "All Trump, all the time," plus we got the Dobbs decision and the subsequent Republican commitment to pursuing some of the most extreme conservative horsesh-t that this country has seen in generations. Even the cancel culture issue, which I still maintain was and might still be a very seriously problem for Democrats, has been completely overshadowed by Republican book bans and other anti-1st Amendment legislation. All of the concerns about parental rights have been overshadowed by Republican opposition to parental rights. Any concerns about how much money the US is sending to Ukraine is overshadowed by the GOP base's outright support of Putin. They've completely squandered anything that could've possibly been a winning issue for them. (It also should be noted that Democrats seem to have learned their lesson from 2021.)

All of that Republican extremism actually has motivated the worst of their base. I don't believe that Trump supporters and other conservatives are refusing to come out and vote unless he's on the ballot. Republican turnout remains pretty impressive. The issue is that the conservative overreach has terrified an entire horde of people to vote straight-ticket Democrat in every single local, county, state, and federal election. That's not going away.

A lot of really good points here - and of course there's also the factor that Youngkin notably didn't have to win a Republican primary.