Flood and Backemeyer Clash in Dueling Town Halls As General Election Approaches

by Matt Johnson

(Picture credits Matt Johnson)

OMAHA — Republican Mike Flood and his Democratic challenger Chris Backemeyer both made campaign stops in Papillion on Thursday evening, speaking within a mile of each other as the May 12 primary draws near.

Backemeyer spoke to a small gathering of guests at the Book Nook on Washington Street, joined by his wife Courtney and a campaign staffer.

The Cook Political Report rates Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District as Solid Republican with an R+6 partisan lean. Backemeyer is positioning himself as a moderate.

“I am convinced that there are a lot of people like you, and I count myself as one of them, that it’s more in the center,” Backemeyer said, “and it feels left behind by parties going too far left or too far right.”

After 9/11, Backemeyer moved to Washington, D.C., and began a 21-year career at the State Department, serving under Presidents Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden.

Flood, who spoke at the Sarpy County GOP monthly meeting on Thursday, believes Backemeyer has spent too much time away from Nebraska.

“He moved out of Nebraska in 1998. He just moved back into his parents’ basement last August,” Flood said. “He has missed how many Husker miseries on Saturdays that we have all lived through.”

In his State Department work, Backemeyer highlighted his role in the Iran nuclear deal.

“I worked on Iran. I was one of the negotiators of the Iran nuclear deal, which was something that I was very proud to work on because it prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and also prevented the conflict that we’re in right now,” Backemeyer said.

Flood was not impressed.

“His claim to fame is that he was at the intersection of that great deal we gave Iran, where we literally loaded up a 757 with billions of dollars,” Flood said. “We flew it over to Tehran so that they could engage in more state-sponsored terrorism. That was his solution to dealing with Iran.”

Healthcare is also a top priority for Backemeyer. He sought advice on the issue from former Nebraska Gov. and U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, who served as state insurance commissioner and cast the deciding vote for the Affordable Care Act, which Backemeyer hopes to expand.

“A public option within the Affordable Care Act will compete against insurance companies, keep them honest, and make sure they have good care. So that’s a really important issue for me,” Backemeyer said. “It also required everybody to have insurance… You need to have it so that the healthy people pay for the sick people and the sick people get healthy. That’s how it works. So I think we need to reinstate that [individual mandate].”

Mike Flood strongly disagreed.

“If math has taught us nothing other than the ACA, the Affordable Care Act, it’s anything but affordable,” Flood said. “This Obama-led effort that all the Democrats support has done nothing but skyrocket insurance costs, take more money out of Americans’ pockets, and hurt people’s ability to get health care. Doubling down on the system that is rife with fraud, waste, and abuse is no way to take the next step on behalf of American taxpayers and even our health care system.”

One provision in last year’s budget reconciliation added work requirements for able-bodied adults without children receiving Medicaid. Backemeyer describes the change as a “cut” and vows to rescind it.

“I do believe that we need to roll back those cuts,” Backemeyer said. “There’s data that shows that when you’re putting these work requirements in place, they don’t actually improve or increase the number of people that get jobs… Instead, they just add extra red tape to the process. And then people effectively lose care and lose coverage.”

Flood disagreed with that position as well.

“If you’re 27 years old and you’re healthy, and you can work, and you choose not to work, don’t expect free healthcare,” Flood said. “I think the hardworking men and women of America expect, at the very least, somebody that has the ability to work to go out there and get a job, volunteer, or at least show us that you’re looking for a job… If you’d rather sit on the couch and get free benefits when you can, in fact, work, it doesn’t make any sense.”

Backemeyer also sees the Supreme Court as a campaign issue and supports reforms, including term limits and a mandatory retirement age.

“I think we need term limits on the Supreme Court, and I think there needs to be a mandatory retirement age,” Backemeyer said. “It’s a real problem because he [Trump] has really managed to pack that court with people that are responsive to his views.”

Flood views that stance as a major problem.

“Chris Backemeyer doesn’t like the way the Supreme Court’s been ruling. And so now he wants to control it,” Flood said. “This is a back way of saying he wants to pack the court with people that agree with him. And that’s not what Thomas Jefferson signed up for. That’s not what George Washington signed up for. That’s not what James Madison signed up for. He needs to go back to the Constitution and look at how it’s worked for 250 years.”

Backemeyer faces a primary opponent, Eric Moyer. Backemeyer is the clear frontrunner in fundraising, having outraised Moyer by a factor of six. Only one will advance to the general election after Tuesday’s primary.

Despite the district’s strong Republican tilt, Flood still urged his supporters to turn out.

“If we show up, we can help President Trump succeed in his next two years,” Flood said. “Because if we don’t show up, the only thing we’re going to talk about in the next two years is impeachment.”

And for one of the guests at Backemeyer’s event, this midterm election feels existential.

“It’s not so much Democrat versus Republican. It is just plain old, good versus evil, right versus wrong, and plain old decency,” the guest said. “If we do not take both houses in this election, the country’s gone, because then that gives him [Donald Trump] two more years to keep ripping us down. So we’ve got to do everything we possibly can.”

— Matt Johnson is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel.