When you, as an incumbent, discover the GOP Central Committee of your own state declines to endorse you, a little soul-searching might be in order.  This is what happened to Congressman Don Bacon (R-Neb.).

In Bacon’s defense, no one expected the representative of the 2nd District of Nebraska to enter the capital as a rock star — we are a small state in population — but Nebraskans have grown tired of being a perennial afterthought in D.C., largely due to the intellectual penury of those we’ve sent to stand for our interests.

Just two years ago, the grassroots conservatives of Nebraska fulfilled a long-term plan to recapture their party from establishment apparatchiks who operated as functionaries of Pete Ricketts, Nebraska’s then-governor and now junior senator.  Conservatives first achieved majorities in county committees, then leveraged that into a bloodless coup at the 2022 state GOP meeting, where they ousted the old guard and took control of the NEGOP.

It’s these same folks, backed by many others like them throughout the state, who have told the aptly described DC “uniparty” that they’ll go no further, not one step more.

This election cycle, the NEGOP hasn’t endorsed a single incumbent in our congressional delegation, partly owing to the hubristic assumption on the part of those incumbents that they were entitled to the party endorsement, so they took it for granted and never even bothered to ask for it.

Here we see a microcosm of the greater struggle between the American people and their “ruling elites.”

After having been ousted from their sinecures, some members of the former regime have petulantly attempted to undermine the new legitimately elected leadership by sabotaging donor relationships and engaging in an endless whisper campaign against the newcomers.  After all, if these upstarts can actually accomplish the policy changes the preceding cadre claimed to be working diligently toward all these years, the jig will be up, and the establishment Republicans of the NEGOP will be revealed as actors in a kabuki production.

This same dynamic is behind the D.C. establishment’s vicious attacks on President Donald Trump, who embarrassed the GOP — not with mean tweets and crass behavior, as they would have you believe, but by accomplishing long-sought policy aims the establishment had forever pretended were all but impossible.

The Nebraska congressional delegation is under heightened scrutiny by a new state GOP leadership committed to honesty, transparency, and results.  Their willingness to require candidates (including incumbents) to earn endorsements is a bold step toward ridding the party of the compromised, co-opted, and all too comfortable denizens of the “swamp.”

Bacon has a serious fight on his hands in this primary election, as his opponent has the backing of the state party as well as Bacon’s former campaign manager.  The hits just keep coming.

The author writes from Omaha, Nebraska.

Image: Nebraska State Capitol.  Credit: jpellgen via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.