OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Voters in North Omaha had a direct opportunity to share their concerns with five Democratic congressional candidates Friday night.
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The candidates are seeking to replace retiring Rep. Don Bacon in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, and the event gave constituents a chance to voice what matters most to them ahead of the May 12 primary.
Elvin Siebert told KMTV "the number one problem is maintaining and keeping democracy."
Anthony Rogers-Wright shared the historical challenges facing the area.
"North Omaha is a historically underfunded and under-resourced community," he said, "so I really think that voters here specifically are looking to candidates and their plans to draw down federal resources directly to the people."
When asked about the top issues facing district neighbors, the candidates said they consistently hear the same concerns from constituents.
"Everybody's talking about the affordability crisis," James Leuschen said. "Everybody's talking about how expensive life is, whether that's housing, healthcare, energy costs, groceries. Everything's just too expensive."
Kishla Askins told KMTV that affordability is the number one issue "in the form of healthcare, in the form of utilities, in the form of groceries, in the form of jobs."
Candidates discussed issues facing the country on a national scale as well.
John Cavanaugh said "having an erratic leader ... running our country is the number one issue, and it's (President Donald Trump's) erratic behavior, self-dealing, and corruption that is leading to the affordability crisis."
Denise Powell said healthcare is "a really, really salient issue" and noted "there are a lot of people who are also just worried about the state of the country and the sort of overt corruption that we're seeing from the administration."
Crystal Rhoades said constituents across the district "are concerned about the chaos of the Trump administration, and they're concerned about the cost of things."
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