NE-02: Kara Eastman's urge to help steered her to social work, now points her toward Washington
Democrat Kara Eastman developed her urge to help while watching her mom struggle after her dad left.
She saw her aunt fight addiction. And as a 7-year-old, she felt her grandmother’s grief after her grandfather died in a car wreck.
“I’ve been through a lot, and I’ve seen a lot,” said Eastman, the Democratic nominee in the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District.
Those who know Eastman say she was shaped by those early experiences in Illinois and Florida.
They inform and define her political approach, said State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha, who became friends with Eastman when working in a Dundee storefront next door to the nonprofit Eastman directed.
“She doesn’t need a poll to see what people need from her,” Hunt said. “She asks, and in many ways, she intuits it by watching and listening.”
Eastman, 48, often makes policies personal, mentioning the loss of her mom to cancer and how her mom skipped at least one drug because it cost too much.
She rejects the labels put on her by Republican Rep. Don Bacon and GOP-aligned groups. She’s been called a “radical socialist” and “Comrade Kara,” and Bacon says her policies are “too risky for Nebraska.”
“I am a Democrat,” Eastman told The World-Herald. “I’m not a socialist. I’m not a democratic socialist.”
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