Nebraska is in the national spotlight. An obscure education fight could tilt the election results.
A fight to overturn Nebraska’s $10 million school voucher law has scrambled the state’s traditional political affiliations — and fired up Democrats over the possibility of beating back a cause that’s swept across conservative states.
The labor-backed school choice referendum has survived a state Supreme Court challenge and drawn millions of dollars in competing spending from the state teachers union, business leaders, plus Republican Gov. Jim Pillen and allies of former Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
But opinion polls suggest a majority of voters oppose Nebraska’s new state-funded program to subsidize private school tuition for qualifying students. Organizers hope their appeals to public education-supporting voters of all ideological stripes offer a blueprint for overturning similar laws across the country, after several Republican-held states like Florida and Arkansas have approved expansive school choice programs over the last two years.
The referendum backers have run a strenuously nonpartisan campaign to rally voucher skeptics in Ogallala, Ord, Omaha and beyond. But some Nebraska Democrats are also hoping that the relatively obscure issue drives voter turnout in the state’s tightly contested 2nd Congressional District and secures its single Electoral College vote for their camp.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/27/nebraska-school-voucher-referendum-00185680