Nebraska: who should earn your vote for Congress in 2026
Opinion · The paper’s scorecard
Nebraska: every race for Congress on the 3 November 2026 ballot, and how the candidates measure up against our standards.
Sitting and former members are scored on the same key votes, read from the official House and Senate roll calls; each vote links to the record. Candidates who have never served in Congress have no votes to score, and outside the battlegrounds we have not researched them, so they are marked as not scored. Where only one candidate could be measured, the mark rates that record on its own; it is not a verdict on the opponent. How the marks work · All states
U.S. Senate R+10
✓ Our pick: Dan Osborn
A battleground: read our full case, with every source.
District 1 R+6
Leans our way: Mike Flood
Chris Backemeyer
Democrat
No congressional voting record; not scored
Leans our way
Mike Flood
Republican · incumbent
Scored on 24 key votes · total +1
- ✓Smaller government
- ~Small business over giants
- ✗Live and let live
- ✓Light touch on tech
- ✗Free speech
- ✗No surveillance state
- ✗Home first, open trade
- ✓Checks on power
- ✓Right to bear arms
- ✓Hard on violent crime
With us (12)
District 2 D+3
No mark
Don Bacon (R): incumbent retiring.
Brinker Harding
Republican
No congressional voting record; not scored
Denise Powell
Democrat
No congressional voting record; not scored
District 3 R+27
No mark
Adrian Smith
Republican · incumbent
Scored on 27 key votes · total +0
- ✓Smaller government
- ~Small business over giants
- ✗Live and let live
- ✓Light touch on tech
- ✗Free speech
- ✗No surveillance state
- ✗Home first, open trade
- ~Checks on power
- ✓Right to bear arms
- ✓Hard on violent crime
With us (15)
Becky Stille
Democrat
No congressional voting record; not scored
Photo credits. Official congressional portraits are works of the U.S. government and in the public domain.