Don Bacon
Donald John Bacon is an American politician and retired military officer who has served as the U.S. representative for Nebraska's 2nd congressional district since 2017. During his 29 years in the United States Air Force, he commanded wings at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and Offutt Air Force Base south of Omaha, Nebraska, before retiring as a brigadier general in 2014. A member of the Republican Party, his district includes all of Omaha and the areas surrounding the Offutt base.
Bacon is often considered a centrist or moderate Republican. His district was carried by Democratic candidates Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, making it a perennial swing district. Bacon has been described as a maverick for his opposition to the isolationist and protectionist policies proposed by Donald Trump, who has derided him as a "rebel." Bacon self identifies as a Reagan Republican.
A member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, Bacon was an original sponsor of the Naming Commission, which stripped the Department of Defense of names valorizing the Confederacy, and of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which established lynching as a unique hate crime, and voted to enact the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified federal recognition of same-sex marriage. He was one of 37 Republicans who rejected attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and one of 35 who supported the committee to investigate the January 6th attack. He has repeatedly sparred with members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. Bacon has been among the most prominent Republican critics of the second Trump administration. As an active voice on foreign policy, Bacon is one of a slate of U.S. representatives sanctioned by the Russian government and was the first member of Congress to be hacked by the Chinese government.
In June 2025, The New York Times reported that Bacon would not seek re-election in 2026. His decision not to run came amidst Trump's efforts to pass his "Big Beautiful Bill" with Bacon stating that "dysfunction" in Washington and "divisions" among the Republican Party, as well as his desire to spend more time with his grandchildren, contributed to his decision. Bacon ultimately voted for the bill.
Early life, education, and military career
Donald John Bacon was born in Chicago Heights, Illinois, on August 16, 1963, the son of Donald and Joan Bacon of Bourbonnais. He grew up on a family farm in Momence, Illinois, and graduated from Grace Baptist Academy in Kankakee in 1980.Image:Donald J. Bacon.JPG|thumb|200px|left|alt=Don Bacon smiling in a military portrait|Brigadier General Don Bacon in 2013
Bacon attended Northern Illinois University and interned in Representative Ed Madigan's Washington, D.C., office during his senior year in 1984. He entered the Air Force in 1985, commissioning through the Air Force Officer Training School at Lackland AFB, Texas. In his military career he specialized in electronic warfare, intelligence, reconnaissance and public affairs, and also qualified as a master navigator. He served as a wing commander at Ramstein Air Base in Germany and at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, as a group commander and squadron commander at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona and an expeditionary squadron commander in Iraq. Bacon has earned master's degrees from the National War College and the University of Phoenix. At the Pentagon, he served as a public affairs aide for General David Petraeus, before his final assignment as the Air Force's director of ISR strategy, plans, doctrine and force development from July 2012. In 2014, Bacon retired from the U.S. Air Force. During his 29 years in the Air Force, he was awarded the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, two Legion of Merits and two Bronze Star Medals; he was selected as Europe's top Air Force wing commander in 2009. He served as an aide to U.S. representative Jeff Fortenberry and assistant professor at Bellevue University before running for office.
Political career
Elections
2016
In the 2016 elections, Bacon won the Republican primary for the U.S. House of Representatives in, a primarily urban and suburban district in metro Omaha, covering parts of Douglas and Sarpy counties.The general election race was considered a tossup, with Democratic incumbent Brad Ashford seen as having a slight edge. After a 2005 videotape showing Donald Trump making lewd remarks to Billy Bush surfaced in October 2016, Bacon said that Trump could not win the presidency and should withdraw from the race in favor of "a strong conservative candidate, like Mike Pence." But Bacon did not say that he would not vote for Donald Trump, since he did not "believe Hillary is the right person. I'm in a quandary."
Bacon narrowly defeated Ashford in the general election on November 8, 2016, with 48.9% of the vote to Ashford's 47.7%. He was the only Republican to defeat an incumbent Democrat in the 2016 House elections.
2018
Bacon was reelected in 2018, narrowly defeating progressive Democrat Kara Eastman with 51.0% of the vote to her 49.0%.2020
Bacon and Eastman faced off again in the 2020 general election. Bacon was reelected by a larger margin than in 2018, winning 51.0% of the vote to Eastman's 46.2%, even as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden won the district by 6.5 points. He was endorsed by his predecessor, Democrat Brad Ashford, whom he defeated in 2016.2022
Bacon narrowly won re-election in 2022 against Nebraska state senator Tony Vargas.2024
Bacon claimed yet another narrow win in the November 2024 general election in a rematch against Democratic challenger Tony Vargas. Trump had sought a primary challenger against Bacon, while the state's Republican Party backed conservative populist Dan Frei for the nomination, who lost by 24 points.Tenure
Bacon was sworn in to the 115th Congress in January 2017. During Donald Trump's first term as president, Bacon voted in line with Trump's position 89.4% of the time.Bacon was reelected in 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024. During the first year of Joe Biden's presidency, Bacon voted in line with Biden's position 29.5% of the time.
Following the 2022 midterm elections and announcements by Freedom Caucus members that they would oppose or demand concessions of presumptive House speaker Kevin McCarthy, Bacon announced he was willing to work with Democrats to elect a moderate Republican.
In August 2023, the FBI revealed that Bacon was the first US lawmaker to be targeted in a cyberespionage intrusion by Chinese government hackers. When asked about the intrusion, which Bacon said largely compromised campaign and personal email data, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC called the incident a "smear" and part of a "groundless narrative." The embassy denial included a complaint that the U.S. government had undercut China's sovereignty with recent arms sales to Taiwan, an effort which Bacon had vocally supported. A spokeswoman for Bacon's office said it was likely a reason for the attack.
Following failed House votes on bills to avoid a government shutdown beginning on October 1, 2023, Bacon said of Republicans in the Freedom Caucus who sought major concessions or pushed for a shutdown "some of these folks would vote against the Bible because there's not enough Jesus in it."
Bacon voted against the October 2023 removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, calling it a vote "for chaos", and "a good day for Russia and China". He supported Steve Scalise in his initial bid for the October 2023 House Speaker election, but voted against the subsequent unsuccessful bid by Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan, Trump's preferred candidate. Following the first round of voting on Jordan's nomination, Bacon revealed that his wife and staff were being harassed and threatened by phone and in public to push him to support Jordan, saying "there's been a bullying campaign...they're being told on certain cable channels that the world's falling apart...and they feel like approved to cross these boundaries and to be wrong." He ultimately supported Mike Johnson's successful bid for the role.
Bacon supported the November 2023 expulsion of George Santos from Congress for fraud.
In the 117th United States Congress, Bacon was ranked the most effective Republican lawmaker by the Center for Effective Lawmaking.
119th Congress
Bacon was seated in the 119th United States Congress in January 2025, just before the start of the second Trump administration.Since Trump's return to office, Bacon has been one of the most vocal Republican critics of the administration's aggressive moves to reshape the U.S. government and America's role in the world. He has consistently rebuked Trump's handling of the War in Ukraine, saying, "he's been very weak... he's been a bit of an appeaser to Russia." He criticized cuts made by DOGE, such as the elimination of AmeriCorps, as "haphazardly eliminating every program a software engineer fails to appreciate." He pushed back against efforts to cut Medicaid, telling the White House that he would not accept more than $500 billion in cuts. Bacon joined a coalition that avoided a government shutdown by passing a continuing resolution, angering Trump allies that preferred to force budget cuts through a shutdown. Bacon called for the firing of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whom he called "an amateur", following reports of Hegseth's repeated unauthorized use of Signal to discuss military plans. He later criticized Trump's decision to fire National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Timothy D. Haugh, director of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, after Trump fired them and others on the advice of conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. Following President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs package which implemented severe import duties against nearly every country in the world, Bacon introduced a bill to curtail presidential tariff powers and warned of a recession. Trump responded that he would veto the bill. Bacon was the lone Republican "nay" vote on the bill to codify President Trump's executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico in U.S. federal documents to the "Gulf of America."