At least two candidates intend to challenge State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh when she runs for reelection in 2022.
Christian Mirch, a lawyer and police officer, and Elizabeth Hallgren, a small-business adviser and educator, have launched campaigns for Cavanaugh’s west-central Omaha district.
District 6 is bordered, roughly, to the north and south by Maple and Pacific Streets and to the east and west by 144th and 72nd Streets.
Mirch worked as an Omaha police officer for 10 years and left after finishing his law degree to clerk for Nebraska Chief Justice Mike Heavican, he said. He later worked in private practice at an Omaha law firm, he said, then opened his own practice and does some work for the State Department of Labor. He still works part time as a police officer in Yutan.
Mirch is also on the board of the Set Me Free Project, which offers curriculums aimed at preventing human trafficking. He was chair of the Douglas County Republican Party but said he stepped down this week in accordance with party guidelines related to running for office.
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A flyer for a Mirch fundraising event names Rep. Don Bacon as a special guest.
In a phone interview, Mirch said he saw the need for better policy while working in law enforcement, specifically noting that the juvenile justice system needs “a lot of work.” But he said he’s not a “single-issue candidate,” is “deeply woven into the community” and is familiar with all of Omaha, having worked in every police precinct.
His campaign website includes platform issues of: education, public safety and criminal justice reform, and cutting taxes and boosting economic growth.
“I am a pro-life, pro-God candidate and definitely a pro-law enforcement candidate,” Mirch said.
Hallgren announced her campaign Tuesday in a press release that emphasized similar issues. Her website includes four priorities: reducing taxes, supporting kids in the classroom, creating family-supporting jobs and restoring civility.
She moved to Omaha in 2009, she said, when her husband was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base. After he retired from the Air Force, they tried living in Colorado, she said, but came back to Nebraska to put down roots because of the community here.
“I think it’s really relevant to the conversation we’re having here in Nebraska about losing people,” she said.
Common themes in her professional life, she said, have been working with startups and existing businesses to help them grow and run efficiently.
She’s currently a business adviser for Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses program, she said, and an instructor for the University of Iowa Venture School. She and her husband, a physician, co-founded an independent family medicine clinic a few years ago, but it was derailed by the pandemic, she said, and they made the difficult decision to close it at the end of 2020.
Hallgren is also an instructor, seasonally, for the U.S. State Department’s Young African Leadership Initiative, as well as an active member of the Omaha West Rotary Club and the Swanson Park Neighborhood Association.
“I spent my career helping small businesses and organizations grow, create jobs and operate efficiently,” she said in the press release. “I want to take that experience to Lincoln to make sure that Nebraska stays a great place to live and that it makes financial sense to be a Nebraskan.”
Both challengers are registered as Republicans, according to the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office.
Incumbent Cavanaugh, who’s registered as a Democrat, was elected in 2018 and is wrapping up her first term. She’s running for reelection and said the campaign has been going well.
She’s been busy with investigative hearings on state child welfare, interim studies, redistricting, engaging with new parts of her district, and planning next session’s policy agenda, she said.
She said she always welcomes people putting their names into the election process — it ensures that conversations happen around issues that are important to voters.
On her campaign website, Cavanaugh lists her issues as: strengthening Omaha’s schools, cutting property taxes for Omaha families, helping families and seniors afford health care, and creating safer neighborhoods.
Cavanaugh formerly worked at the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska, according to her campaign website, and was previously director of development for Opera Omaha and the American Province of the Servants of Mary, and an aide to U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson. According to her LinkedIn profile, she is currently the director of development at Women Who Run Nebraska.
“I hope that I have proven to (constituents) that I represent their voice in the Legislature and I am a very strong advocate for children, and for government transparency and oversight, and for being good stewards of taxpayers’ dollars,” Cavanaugh said.
This story has been updated to correct details of Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh's employment history. She no longer works for the Buffett Early Childhood Institute.