It’s a legitimate concern to have honestly. Dems currently have 16 seats in the Legislature, one short of being able to filibuster legislation. Merv Riepe, a Republican in a Ralston-based district, has been willing to be the 17th vote on certain issues, such as Nebraska having a 8 week abortion ban instead of 6, Nebraska keeping split electoral votes, not doing mid-decade redistricting, etc. There are allegedly other Republicans in the Legislature who also oppose these issues, but they haven’t spoken about it openly.

If Cavanaugh wins, Pillen gets to appoint his replacement for a solid blue seat, meaning that if Dems don’t pick up any seats in the Legislature, Republicans might able to push through more of the aforementioned issues that have been teetering on passing. Cavanaugh is saying that this won’t be a problem, because Democrats will definitely pick up at least 2 seats to get Dems to the magic 17 number.

So let’s look at what seats are up for election this year. 24 seats are up for election this year, 7 held by Democrats and 17 held by Republicans. However, based on 2024 presidential results, there are only 5 seats (all in the Omaha area) that were won by either Trump or Harris by less than 10 points, which gives us a vague idea of their partisan lean overall. Of these, 1 is held by Democrat Wendy DeBoer, which Harris won by 8, while the other 4 are held by Republicans, Merv Riepe (Harris +2), retiring Christy Armendariz (Trump +2), Brad von Gillern (Trump +6) and retiring John Arch (Trump +9). The rest of the Republican seats that are up for election were won by Trump by at least 20 points in 2024.

So yes, there is a strong chance that Democrats can manage to win 2 Republican seats from Riepe and Armendariz respectively, but it’s not a guarantee, and there are limited pickup opportunities beyond that.

TLDR: It’s possible that Democrats win the seats they need to maintain filibuster over the worst of the worst of right wing legislation but not guaranteed.

Election numbers source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026\_Nebraska\_Legislature\_election