OMAHA, Nebraska (AP) — Voters in Omaha are not just deciding the city’s mayor Tuesday, but whether a Democrat who opposes abortion rights can give the party some hope in the conservative heartland.
Democrats around the country have focused on their party’s candidate Heath Mello, some looking to the 37-year-old former state senator as an independent future party leader and others shaking their heads at his anti-abortion record.
In that way, the race in this mid-sized Midwestern city has become a symbol for the out-of-power party’s struggle for the way forward after crushing defeat across the country last year.
Mello faces incumbent Republican Jean Stothert, a 63-year-old Republican elected in 2013.
The race leapt into the national political conversation last month, when the Democratic National Committee announced it was including a stop to promote Mello on its national circuit of rallies in states carried during the presidential election by Republican Donald Trump. The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League quickly slammed the national party for endorsing Mello, who supported abortion restrictions during his eight years in the Nebraska Legislature.
DNC Chairman Tom Perez quickly backtracked, saying “every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices,” and called on Democrats to speak with “one voice.” Some Midwestern and anti-abortion Democrats blasted Perez for comments they viewed as excluding people when the party is in the minority in Congress and most state legislatures. “His actions were really off the mark,” Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly, who opposes abortion rights, told The Associated Press last week.
At the April 20 rally in Omaha, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who sought the Democratic presidential nomination last year, endorsed Mello, telling thousands, “Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to change one-party rule in Nebraska. And we can start right here by electing Heath Mello as the next mayor.”
Mello has cast himself as a next-generation Democrat focused on party principles such as economic opportunity, while embracing GOP-friendly ideas such as public-private partnerships as a way to solve the city’s vexing streets problem. “That’s the future of the Democratic Party, in my mind, looking at that pro-growth, progressive, future-focused mentality.”
Should Mello win, it would give Democrats a leg up in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, more than two-thirds of which is in Omaha, as the party hopes to claw its way back to the majority next year. And in a state that apportions its presidential electoral votes by congressional district, the mayor’s office could be an important Democratic foothold.
Polls in Omaha close at 8 p.m. local time.
