OMAHA, Nebraska (AP) — Democrats again fell just short in a closely-watched election as Heath Mello lost the Omaha mayoral race on Tuesday after a fierce debate within the national party over his anti-abortion views.
His loss was a setback for supporters who argued that the Democratic National Committee and abortion rights groups were wrong to attack the anti-abortion former state senator.
It was also another near miss for Democrats fighting in typically Republican territory since Donald Trump’s presidential election victory. Democrats lost a special election for a House seat in Kansas and narrowly missed an outright win in a special election in Georgia.
Mello, a 37-year-old Catholic from Omaha’s working-class south side, had become a flashpoint for the internal Democratic battle over whether a candidate’s position on reproductive rights should disqualify him from support by the national party after its crushing losses around the country last year.
Tuesday, Mello acknowledged the “completely different dynamic” the campaign took on in the closing weeks, but noted what he described as unified support across ideological lines.
“We tried to run a campaign that was inclusive from the beginning regardless of political affiliation, regardless or ideology under the banner of change,” Mello told hundreds in a west Omaha hotel ballroom.
Republican Jean Stothert, a 63-year-old former nurse and city council member elected in 2013, was elected to a second term.
The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League slammed the Democratic National Committee for supporting Mello, who voted for abortion restrictions during his eight years in the Nebraska Legislature.
Responding to the criticism, the Democratic committee chairman Tom Perez declared that, “every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices.” His comment sparked a fierce debate within the party over whether there should be an abortion rights litmus test, with Mello caught in the middle.
“It’s astounding that our party chairman would say pro-life Democrats are not welcome,” Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb told The Associated Press Tuesday as Mello conceded defeat.
A CBS News poll taken in January found 15 percent of Democrats nationally believed that abortion should not be permitted.
Omaha Democratic voter Adam Gouttierre, a 45-year-old business developer, said Democrats in Nebraska didn’t have the luxury of being choosy. “Abortion is one item on the menu of progressive concepts,” he said, frustrated at the backlash. “You can’t have them all!”
At the April 20 rally in Omaha, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who sought the Democratic presidential nomination last year, endorsed Mello, telling thousands, “Are you ready for a political revolution?”
Mello had cast himself as a next-generation Democrat focused on economic opportunity, while embracing GOP-friendly ideas such as public-private partnerships as a way to solve the city’s vexing streets problem. “That’s the future of the Democratic Party, in my mind, looking at that pro-growth, progressive, future-focused mentality.”
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Yes!!! A revolution that includes subjugation of women when it comes to making decisions about that healthcare! You rock, Bernie!
lemme guess: you’re a big Pelosi fan.
anyway, more to the point: wonder if knee-jerk anti-Bernie vitriol on this Mello issue had anything to do with him losing? if so, good job our team! we lose again!
Because Stothert is going to be sooo much better. Apparently some purity unicorns are more important than others.
Women’s healthcare is a purity unicorn. Got it.
I don’t know is wanting to address income inequality a purity unicorn? Is wanting to address LGBT issues a purity unicorn? Is wanting to address environmental issues a purity unicorn? Is expecting a Democratic Senator not to provide cover for Republicans stealing a Supreme Court seat a purity unicorn? Or is it only a purity unicorn when it is the progressive wing of the party complaining about the compromises being made to win in a red state, not when it is the party establishment throwing a Democratic candidate under the bus?
One of the most consistent critiques, not unjustified, of Bernie supporters on this site is their purity tests and unwillingness to compromise on Liberal dogma when necessary to win in red states, yet when they do compromise they are attacked for compromising on the wrong issues. So what is it are purity tests bad or is it just certain purity test that are unacceptable?
Of course this also ignores how Mello’s positions on abortion and his work with Planned Parenthood in this state have been evolving as touched on in this Nation article on the issue: https://www.thenation.com/article/why-was-heath-mello-thrown-under-the-bus/
Hell as one of the previous TPM articles on this race notes:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/abortion-issues-dems-effort-promote-next-gen
He has a former president of Planned Parenthood Nebraska as one of his chief fundraisers, I mean obviously the issue is more complicated then it is being treated at the national level.
Edit: Look if he had taken a more hard-line anti-abortion stance in his replies in that Nation piece and if he didn’t seem to have some of the local support from people that seem credible on the issue I would be with you on saying that abortion is a deal breaker, but given the responses he did give and the support he does appear to have the severity of this backlash seems unjustified and not worth what it has cost us… four more years of Stothert.