With tens of millions of votes already cast in the 2024 election we want to double down on where best to send your donation dollars, as Get Out the Vote campaigns kick into overdrive.
Nebraska
If you’re even a mild politics junkie you know that “Nebraska 2” could be the most important congressional district in America in 2024, because Nebraska splits its five electoral votes, four of which will undoubtedly go to Donald Trump. So why is it important to peel off that lone Second District for Kamala Harris? Well, should she hold on to the so-called “Blue Wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and lose Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada — all of which is distinctly possible — she will have 269 electoral votes. Do the math: That lonely blue dot in a sea of red could give the Veep the minimum 270 Electoral College votes necessary to become President Kamala Harris.
But Nebraska might not only save America from a second Trump presidency — and the threat to democracy and the rule of law he represents — it may also help Democrats win the U.S. House. As we’ve written earlier, the race for control of the House is crucial — if Trump does win, a Democratic House can prove a major brake on his authoritarian dreams. In Nebraska, Democrat Tony Vargas, currently a state legislator with strong blue-collar roots, is looking to unseat GOP House incumbent Don Bacon, who claims he’s voting for Trump in 2024 — even though he says of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, “What happened that day was wrong.” So, one would think, is voting for the guy who instigated it. Taking Bacon’s House seat could be the harbinger of a Harris presidency.
And the Nebraska beat goes on: Independent candidate for the Senate Dan Osborn, a strong labor leader — in 2021, he led a tough, ultimately successful strike of 500 workers at the Kellogg’s cereal plant, in Omaha — is vying against two-term Republican incumbent Deb Fischer. Due to what even GOP operatives see as a poor campaign on her part, Fischer requires Trump to come in and campaign for what was supposed to be a safe Red seat.
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We have already written about some choice Get Out the Vote orgs, U.S. Senate races, and U.S. House races, where volunteering your time and/or donating money might actually make a difference in the fight for democracy. Below, we sum up our best bets in a short and sweet cheat sheet.
U.S. Senate
Since the Senate confirms Supreme Court justices, it is important that Democrats gain a majority in the chamber to stand against whatever MAGA-fied hanging judge a possible President Trump would want to elevate, to further his “Hitler did some good things” agenda.
Here are our picks for races you should consider expending your hard-earned cash and/or valuable time on:
• Some polls are showing Democratic Congressman Colin Allred ahead — or at least within the margin of error — in his race for a Senate seat in Texas. He’s running against Ted Cruz, what else do you need to know?
• George Takei is stumping for Ohio incumbent Sherrod Brown, who is locked in a tight race with a MAGA Republican who doesn’t have the backing of any Star Trek stars — though we suspect Khan is down with Project 2025.
• In Pennsylvania, incumbent Bob Casey could use help getting out the vote — hopefully, anyone who pulls the lever for him will also move up the ticket to cast a vote for Harris in that all-important swing state.
• Elissa Slotkin boasts a story that is “made in Michigan,” which includes her family’s company, Hygrade Foods, creator of the Ballpark Frank. It doesn’t get much more American than that.
• Ruben Gallego is running in another crucial swing state against a Republican, Kari Lake, who, according to the Washington Post, the former president asked to quit hanging around Mar-a-Lago so much: “Trump gently suggested to Lake that she should leave the club and hit the campaign trail in Arizona.”
• Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is running in Florida to replace incumbent Republican Rick Scott, upon whom, in 2023, Time magazine bestowed the honor “The Least Popular Man in Washington.”
• The incumbent from Montana, Jon Tester, is one of the few Democratic senators left in Deep Red America. We won’t kid you — he’s slipped in the polls since we last wrote about him. But since he’s got the backing of the stars of The Big Lebowski, we feel anything can happen.
U.S. House
Just like a pro-democracy majority of Dems in the Senate, a Blue House will be needed as a bulwark against a possible Trump 2.0. Again, we’ve written about these races before, but the excerpts below give you a quick ‘n’ dirty roundup if you want to throw some final skin in the game.
• New York’s 4th District, Dem challenger (and Emily’s List choice) Laura Gillen, is in a stubbornly tight race against GOP incumbent Anthony D’Esposito, known for particularly egregious nepotism when it comes to his taxpayer-funded payroll.
• NY 17: Mondaire Jones is currently one point behind incumbent Mike Lawler, known for his slavish devotion to Donald Trump: Let ’em eat cake, Mike.
• NY 19: Challenger Josh Riley is currently in a super-tight race against Marc Molinaro, a Republican incumbent who once had a reputation as a moderate but has gone so full-metal MAGA that reposting the canard about immigrants eating pets on X is just another day at the office.
• In New York’s 22nd District, former public school biology and chemistry teacher John Mannion is challenging GOP incumbent Brandon Williams, who said, after the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump, “God saved our Republic last night.” ‘Nuff said.
• In California’s 13th District: Democrat Adam Gray continues to lead incumbent John Duarte by one point, in a rematch of a race two years ago when Duarte won by only 564 votes — so Gray has a real shot.
• CA 22: Democrat Rudy Salas worked in the grape fields of California’s Central Valley growing up, and as a state assemblyman has worked on major bond issues to improve the Golden State’s water infrastructure. Emerson College’s most recent poll of Salas’s bid against incumbent Republican David G. Valadao is calling the race dead even.
• CA 27: Former NASA exec George Whitesides has called out GOP incumbent Mike Garcia on corruption for selling his Boeing stock right before a Congressional committee that Garcia sits on hammered the aerospace giant in a negative report. Whitesides nails one of the most corrupt practices in D.C. in his campaign literature: “It is unacceptable that members of Congress can still trade individual stocks while in office.” Truer words have never been spoken.
• We’ve reported on the race between Dem challenger Will Rollins and Ken Calvert in CA 41 elsewhere, but with 538 calling the race even, we want to remind folks that Rollins is an openly gay former federal prosecutor and Calvert is one of the most anti-LGBTQ members of Congress.
• In CA 45, army vet Derek Tran is ahead by two points in a district in a state that is subject to wildfires, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. He’s looking to oust two-term GOP congresswoman Michelle Steel, who, early in her freshman term back in 2021, voted to defund FEMA.
• In Virginia’s 7th district, immigrant and former member of the 82nd Airborne Division Eugene Vindman is in a tight race against another vet, Republican Derrick Anderson, perhaps most famous for posing with the wife and three daughters of a friend in what some voters might easily mistake for a family photo — although he’s unmarried. Vindman actually has a wife — and two kids — as well as a sense of service and duty that runs in his family: His brother Alexander revealed President Trump’s extortionate language during a 2019 phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which led to Trump’s first impeachment later that year.
• Pennsylvania’s 7th District has voted for the eventual presidential winner over the past seven cycles, and Dem incumbent Susan Wild, known for bipartisanship, is maintaining a small lead over GOP challenger Ryan Mackenzie, a big supporter of school vouchers, which will siphon funding from public schools. Here’s hoping a win for Wild will continue her district’s bellwether status and usher in a Kamala Harris administration. ❖
∼ ∼ ∼ This article is part of a series — At 250, Who Will America Be? — reporting on threats to American democracy as we approach the nation’s Semiquincentennial, on July 4, 2026. ∼ ∼ ∼
