- Pete Ricketts won Tuesday's Nebraska GOP Senate primary with about 78% of the vote, setting up a November showdown with independent Dan Osborn.
- Kalshi gives Republicans a 59% chance of holding the seat, while Osborn — running without a Democrat opposing him — has energized betting markets with recent polls showing a near-tie.
- In the NE-2 House race, Kalshi puts Democrats at 83% to flip the open seat, with Denise Powell narrowly leading state Sen. John Cavanaugh in an uncalled Democratic primary.
- Republican Brinker Harding, endorsed by President Trump, runs unopposed for the GOP nomination in NE-2 but faces tough November terrain in a district with a D+3 Cook PVI.
- Nebraska's “blue dot” district and Senate race are both drawing national money and attention as key pieces of the 2026 midterm puzzle.
OMAHA, Neb. — Nebraska voters headed to the polls Tuesday and left two marquee races in very different states of clarity. The Senate primary produced an easy winner. The House primary in the 2nd Congressional District did not — and as of Wednesday morning, a razor-thin margin was keeping one of the most consequential Democratic contests of the cycle from being called.
Here is where the election odds stand heading into the November stretch.
Senate: Ricketts Advances, But Osborn Is No Afterthought
Sen. Pete Ricketts cleared his Republican primary without much drama, capturing about 78% of the vote against four challengers and earning an Associated Press call just after 9 p.m. Tuesday. The result was never seriously in doubt — polling showed Ricketts well ahead, and he carried the structural advantages of incumbency and party support throughout the race.
What awaits him in November is a different matter.
Independent Dan Osborn, a former labor union leader and strike organizer from Omaha, is running without major-party opposition after Democratic primary winner Cindy Burbank indicated before the election that she would withdraw and back Osborn to avoid splitting the anti-Ricketts vote. Burbank made good on that pledge following her win Tuesday. The result is a rare, near-clean two-way race between a Republican incumbent and an independent challenger in one of the country's most reliably red states.
Kalshi currently gives Republicans a 59% chance of holding the seat, with Osborn's side priced around 41%. Polymarket has shown similar figures, with one recent snapshot placing Osborn at 47% — a number that has surprised national analysts given Nebraska's electoral history.
The case for Ricketts is straightforward and formidable. Nebraska has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2006, and no independent has won a U.S. Senate seat in the state since 1936. Republicans have held both Senate seats since 2012. President Donald Trump carried Nebraska by double digits in both 2020 and 2024. Ricketts also has access to national party money and infrastructure that Osborn cannot easily match.
And yet Osborn has rattled the race in ways that few challengers to deep-red incumbents manage. He outraised Ricketts in recent fundraising periods, drawing on small-dollar donors energized by his populist, working-class pitch. Sabato's Crystal Ball rates the seat “Likely Republican,” not “Safe” — a telling distinction in a state that would normally be considered off the board.
Osborn, who narrowly lost to then-Sen. Deb Fischer in 2024, has described the contest as “the CEO from Omaha versus the guy from the shop floor from Omaha” — a framing that has resonated in rural and working-class communities where frustration with Washington runs deep across party lines.
The risk for Osborn remains ballot access logistics, the question of whether Burbank formally stays off the November ballot, and whether the state's Republican base turns out at its historic rates once the full weight of national GOP spending arrives. Ricketts is the safer bet — that 59% figure on Kalshi reflects genuine but not overwhelming confidence — and at this stage of the cycle, that is still a meaningful advantage in a state built for his party.
NE-2: Democrats Are Favored, but the Primary Isn't Over
Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District — commonly called the “blue dot” for its history of splitting its single Electoral College vote away from the statewide Republican winner — is shaping up as one of the most-watched House races of the 2026 cycle. And right now, it is also one of the most unsettled.
On the Democratic side, Denise Powell, a political activist and PAC co-founder, held a lead of roughly 1,000 votes over state Sen. John Cavanaugh as of early Wednesday morning, with the Associated Press declining to call the race. The margin was close enough that a recount remained possible under Nebraska law.
The Republican side had no such drama. Omaha City Council member Brinker Harding ran unopposed after former state Sen. Brett Lindstrom withdrew earlier this year. Trump endorsed Harding, and the National Republican Congressional Committee has signaled it will invest in the seat.
That head start for Republicans has not translated into favorable general election odds. Kalshi currently gives Democrats an 83% chance of winning NE-2 in November, with Republicans at 15%. The Cook Political Report moved the race from toss-up to lean Democratic after Bacon announced his retirement last year, and outside spending has already poured into the Omaha market from both parties.
The district's underlying numbers explain the Democratic confidence. NE-2 has a Cook Partisan Voter Index of D+3. That means it has trended Democrat by about three points more than the national average over the past two presidential cycles. Kamala Harris won the district in 2024, as did Joe Biden in 2020 — the only Nebraska district to break from the statewide Republican winner in both elections. Bacon himself won reelection in 2024 by only a 51%-49% margin, and he is no longer on the ballot.
Harding is not without strengths. He has unified Republican support, Trump's backing, and avoids the baggage of a contested primary. But the district's partisan lean and Bacon's retirement leave him little room for error.
Powell vs. Cavanaugh: The primary fight turned contentious late, with a Powell-aligned outside group airing ads arguing that a Cavanaugh victory would endanger the blue dot itself. The argument: if Cavanaugh won his congressional race and vacated his state senate seat, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen would appoint a conservative replacement, potentially giving Republicans a filibuster-proof supermajority in the state legislature — the body that would vote on changing Nebraska's unique Electoral College law to a winner-take-all system. Cavanaugh disputed the premise, and several fellow state senators signed a letter calling the attacks misleading.
The general election outcome likely rests more on the district's partisan gravity and national conditions than on which Democrat ultimately wins the primary. But for those tracking election odds in Nebraska and the battle for House control, NE-2 is a race to watch — one of a small number of seats where the math genuinely tilts toward a Democratic pickup.
Both Nebraska contests are set for November 3, 2026.