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Elections often bring surprises, but the upset victory of retired Omaha businessman Scott Petersen in the Republican primary for Secretary of State wasn’t that surprising.
Sure, he defeated an incumbent, Lincoln attorney Bob Evnen, who was seeking a third, four-year term. His office runs our state elections and handles several different tasks, like registering corporations.
More than a couple of things were working in Petersen’s favor.
First off, Petersen appeared to mount a more aggressive campaign. His 4-by-8 foot campaign signs appeared everywhere around eastern Nebraska where I travel. There were few Evnen signs in the down-ballot race where yard signage is important.
“Petersen” is a pretty popular name to run with in a Nebraska election, like “Nelson” or “Anderson.” Everyone knows someone with those names.
Remember former Attorney General Doug Peterson? He was a very good trial attorney, but having the name “Peterson” helped him win a crowded GOP primary.
And, in a Republican primary, fewer people vote, and those who do are more conservative.
That was pretty evident the last time Evnen ran. He managed only 40% of the vote in the GOP primary against two, more conservative candidates in 2022. That was enough to win, but far from a show of strength.
Petersen, whose prior election experience included a losing run for Douglas County Clerk in 2020, touted himself as a “conservative leader” and the “America First” candidate (i.e. fully aligned with President Donald Trump) who would “restore trust” in state elections.
Petersen is part of the crowd who thinks we ought to return to hand counting of ballots (instead of a machine count) and who question whether Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Like the bogey man in a horror film, the idea that Trump really won in 2020 just won’t die. That’s despite dozens of failed lawsuits challenging the election results and the lack of any evidence that Biden didn’t win. He won, something that Trump has admitted privately.
I guess if you say “the sky isn’t blue” enough times, some people will believe that it isn’t blue.
State and local election officials in Nebraska, including Evnen, have consistently defended the ballot-counting systems now in place as safe and secure -- and much less costly than hand counting.
Studies have indicated hand counting is 1.5 to 1.8 times less accurate than the optical scanning machines now used.
Lancaster County Election Chief Todd Wiltgen has said that hand-counted audits of votes tallied by machine in his county have shown “zero deviation” (i.e. 100% accuracy). Back in 2022, I remember hearing members of a self-appointed posse called “The Nebraska Voter Accuracy Project” insisting, at a legislative hearing, that there was no way Trump could have lost in Omaha’s congressional district in 2020. That, they said, was because another Republican, U.S. Rep. Don Bacon had won there.
Hmm. My recollection was that by 2020, voters had grown weary of Trump’s daily, social media rants and were seeking calmer, less chaotic leadership.
Bacon, meanwhile, was a popular congressman who had won before in his district, which is pretty evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.
The election deniers kept insisting that the state’s ballot counting computers had been hacked. But that conveniently ignored the fact that the ballot counting equipment is not connected to the internet.
Again, don’t forget: the sky isn’t blue. Almost all of the state’s elected officials supported Evnen including Bacon, who said Petersen aligned himself with “crazies” and was the “president of the tinfoil hat club.”
That didn’t seem to matter. Evnen lost to Petersen by nearly 17,000 votes.
Some media speculated that Petersen’s victory might give a Democrat an opening to take the Secretary of State’s seat.
That seems like a long shot. A Democrat hasn’t served in that office for 85 years. The Democrat who won the May primary, Plattsmouth-area chef Sarah Slattery, has little name recognition outside of her area (where she lost a 2022 race for the State Legislature, and led a recall campaign that ousted a local school board member who wanted to ban dozens of books).
I wonder if she wishes her name was “Peterson?”
Paul Hammel has covered the Nebraska state government and the state for decades. He is a retired senior reporter for the Nebraska Examiner and the former Capitol Bureau Chief for the Omaha World-Herald.
