Residents of Omaha and surrounding communities will soon be bludgeoned with political campaign ads, as the electoral shot-clock narrows on Labor Day, Sept. 7, to less than 60 days until the Nov. 3 midterm election.
While campaign ad strategies vary—sometimes greatly—candidates typically aim to broadcast their position on issues believed to be most salient among voters. More aggressively, candidates may also try to present a contrast, characterizing and blasting their opponent’s position on the same subject.
In Nebraska’s highly watched 2nd Congressional District race, healthcare access could turn out to be the issue candidates seize on most to mark their differences.
This week, Democratic nominee for NE-02 Denise Powell kicked off a six-figure ad buy titled “Auction,” in which she paints her Republican opponent, Brinker Harding, as “bidding” for President Donald Trump’s “attention” and “approval.”
Powell narrates four issues that she believes Harding is aligned with Trump on, listing first “cutting Medicaid” and “raising health insurance premiums,” followed by “the tariffs” and “the war in Iran.”
Trump’s signature tax and spending package of his second term, H.R. 1, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is projected to cut federal Medicaid spending by approximately $1 trillion by the year 2034. Further, the bill raised health insurance premiums by allowing enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) financial help to expire at the end of 2025.
On the day Trump signed the OBBBA into law, Harding expressed his support for the measure on social media. “Two of my campaign pillars are Grow America and Secure America,” Harding’s post read. “The One Big Beautiful Bill does just that—cutting taxes for working families and making our border & homeland more secure.”
“Brinker Harding supports Trump on all of it,” Powell says before approving her message and pitching herself as “a mom who knows we can’t afford more of this.”
While Harding’s Labor Day ad blitz has yet to be teased, he’s generally staked his campaign on two broad focus areas: “affordability and accountability.”
According to his campaign website, Harding claims an interest in protecting programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, with the caveat “NOT illegal immigrants or able-bodied adults.”
To Harding’s concern, as it stands, unauthorized immigrants are already not eligible to receive benefits through programs like Medicare or Social Security. There is no evidence to suggest that unauthorized immigrants fraudulently receive these benefits in large numbers, either. In terms of Medicaid, federal law prohibits undocumented immigrants from enrolling in regular Medicaid or buying health insurance through ACA marketplaces.
Harding’s allusion to “able-bodied adults” is likely a signal of support for another key provision in the OBBBA. As written in the bill, starting Jan. 1, 2027, able-bodied adults in the Medicaid expansion program must complete 80 hours of work or related community engagement activities, per month, in order to maintain their coverage.
Nebraska, however, is feeling this shift earlier than other states.
In December 2025, Gov. Jim Pillen signed a letter detailing the state would enact these new federal work requirements on May 1, 2026, far earlier than the federal deadline. At the start of August, the state began disenrolling existing Medicaid participants who did not meet those requirements. This initial wave included at least 200 residents, but estimates from the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities state that between 28,000 and 41,000 Nebraskans are now at risk of losing their health coverage by 2034.
Harding’s website also cites an interest in “making healthcare, including IVF, more accessible and affordable for Nebraska families.”
According to Powell’s website, she supports building on the ACA, reducing premiums and deductibles, and the creation of a Medicare-like public option “that gives every American the choice of affordable coverage while protecting private insurance for those who want it.”
NE-02 voters will wade through the deluge of campaign advertising and elect their next congressional representative for the district on Nov. 3.
