A former gubernatorial rival to Governor Jim Pillen, State Senator Carol Blood of Bellevue, kicked off her campaign for Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District seat on a warm Saturday afternoon in a south Lincoln union hall.
Blood has lived in Sarpy County for many years, serving on the Bellevue City Council from 2008 until 2016 before being elected to the Legislature. In her second major political campaign, Blood will run on the democratic ticket as she did in her 2022 campaign for Governor.
Her campaign kick off even this weekend filled the local Electrical Workers Union Hall with about 70-80 supporters. Several prominent Nebraska progressives were in attendance, including State Senators Jane Raybould, George Dungan, Machaela Cavanaugh, and John Cavanaugh, Lancaster County Commissioner Christa Yoakum, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb, and various other office holders/candidates.
Se. Dungan of Lincoln introduced Blood for the kickoff event, and spoke of her diligence, respect, and compassion as a lawmaker.
“Carol is always, always, always fighting,” Dungan said. “Both times that she ran in the legislature, she ran in +Trump districts… and she showed that she could talk to everybody. Whether your red-blue, rich-poor, urban-rural, she speaks to every single person because she is tenacious.”
Rep. Mike Flood
Blood will run against incumbent Congressman Mike Flood, a republican from Norfolk. Flood was elected to represent Nebraska’s first congressional district in a special election to fill a vacancy left by Jeff Fortenberry who resigned due to a criminal conviction that has since been reversed. Flood narrowly beat out Democratic challenger Patty Pansing Brooks by a little over 6,000 votes, a 5.4% lead.
During her stump roughly 15 minute speech, Blood criticized Flood, saying he’s forgotten his nonpartisan roots in the Nebraska Unicameral, “Because of this blind allegiance to political parties, the current Congress can’t pass a long term budget to fund our military, protect our seniors, and the least among us. And also remember to invest in infrastructure, ag families, first responders, and our teachers.”
Blood and Flood go back as collogues in the legislature. Blood was not shy to compare and contrast last years tumultuous legislative session and the one in kind in the House of Representatives.
“We all know last year’s legislative session appeared dysfunctional. But even with all that happened, we passed 291 bills,” Blood exclaimed, “Now let’s look at Congress. What did they accomplish this last year? You’ll note that the people in Congress passed only 24 bills and are on the path to becoming the most unproductive congress in modern history.”
Blood also compared the $12,000 salary of a State Senator with the $174,000 salary of a house representative, “It is time to send people brave enough to fight for what’s right for Nebraskans. Not for their own political careers, not for special interests, and not for the vocal minority.”
Blood speaks to voters during her campaign kickoff. (Chase Porter, KLIN News)
Expressing strong stances on several key issues her speech, Blood hammered Flood for tangential GOP efforts to gut social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. “They want to decrease benefits and COLAs, and they want to make sure those who’ve paid into the system since their first job at age 14, like me, wait until they are over 70 years old for those benefits. They continually weaponize these issues. You know why? Because it works. When they use this as a political weapon, we all know what comes next. Absolutely nothing,” she said, vowing to protect the benefits.
Zooming in on a local political issue, Blood contrasted her opposition, and Flood’s support, for Nebraska’s controversially approved ‘Opportunity Scholarships Act,’ which created tax credits for private school scholarships. This legislation is slatted to be subject to voter approval/rejection on the November 5th general election ballot.
“Flood supports the LB 753 scheme to take money away from public schools to give to private schools. I was proud to fight this bill on the floor of the legislature, and I played a role in helping to collect over 117,000 signatures to place the issue the November ballot,” she said.
Certain to be a primary issue to voters, Blood drew stark differences with her opponent over access to abortion services, saying, “The most significant difference between Mike Flood and myself, is he supports a complete and total ban on abortion… and I personally believe safe and accessible reproductive health care is a basic right, supported by science, medicine, and respect for human dignity.”
Cookies featuring a parody of Flood’s congressional race poster design. Corrected to say ‘Blood for U.S. Congress’ replacing the ‘F’ with a ‘B.’ (Chase Porter, KLIN News)
Finally, Blood emphasized she would fight Flood on the issue immigration. Blood predicts Flood will pummel the issue during his campaign, and said if she had the chance to debate Flood on the subject, “I will go toe-to-toe with him on the fact that our border crisis is Congress’s fault. The fact we don’t have enough border patrols, immigration judges, and humanitarian resources for this crisis sits squarely on Mike Flood and the GOP who refuse to pass a long term budget bill to protect our border.” Even further referring to a recent visit Flood made to the border as a “photo shoot,” likely to appear in his “Christmas card.”
“It’s about time for a win.. and it’s one that I can only do with your help,” Blood concluded her pitch to voters. “Let’s push up our sleeves and get to work. Onward and upward, friends, to a better tomorrow for all.” The crowd cheered, chanting the candidates name.
Blood stayed behind and greeted with supporters and Nebraska’s politically prominent. KLIN News caught up with Blood, who said she was pleased with the event’s turnout, and the next step is to take her campaign door to door.