More absentee voters than ever in Nebraska primary
OMAHA, Neb. — Nebraska’s primary voters mostly steered clear of polling sites Tuesday while shattering the state record for absentee voting with nearly 400,000 mailin ballots in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Republican President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic challenger Joe Biden sailed to easy victories in the election, the first inperson primary since a heavily criticized election in Wisconsin five weeks ago in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. So did Republican U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, who faced a GOP primary challenge because of his previous criticism of Trump. Sasse will face Chris Janicek, the owner of an Omaha cakebaking company, who won a nineway Democratic primary Tuesday night.
In a closely watched Democratic primary for an Omahabased congressional district, voters chose progressive Kara Eastman over a more conservative candidate. Eastman will once again face Republican Rep. Don Bacon, as she did in 2018.
Officials had encouraged people to vote by mail, though Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts and Secretary of State Bob Evnen both pledged to forge ahead with an inperson primary even though many other states have rescheduled theirs or switched to allmail voting. Voters easily broke the previous mailin voting record of around 70,000 in 2018, which includes people who requested early ballots and voters in early rural counties who receive them automatically.
Polling sites in the Omaha suburb of Papillion reported lower inperson turnout than normal. At First Lutheran Church, voters who walked into the basement polling station had plenty of space to cast their ballots.
Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse said inperson turnout was unusually low. He said overall turnout was still strong because of the huge number of mailin ballots received, but polls saw very few inperson voters.
A possible shortage of poll workers prompted Ricketts to order members of the Nebraska National Guard to provide oncall help at shortstaffed polling sites in eight counties, including the Omaha and Lincoln areas. He said Guard members would be dressed in civilian clothes, not their normal uniforms.
In Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany, a state senator endorsed by President Donald Trump, easily won a special congressional election Tuesday in a heavily conservative, rural Wisconsin district.
Tiffany’s win over Democrat Tricia Zunker in Wisconsin’s 7th District comes in the state’s second election amid the coronavirus pandemic the past five weeks. Tiffany will replace former reality TV star Sean Duffy, a Republican who retired in September.
Trump won Wisconsin by less than a point, but carried the district by 20 points in 2016. Tiffany’s win over Zunker was about 6 points less than that, based on preliminary results. Democrats seized on that as a sign that Trump’s support was waning.