Nebraska 2024 Election Results

Nebraska held its general election on November 5, 2024, deciding 25 legislative seats and 2 statewide offices. Nebraska's unicameral Legislature is officially nonpartisan; the composition shown reflects the party affiliation of its members.

Highlights

• Nebraska's one-house, officially nonpartisan Legislature came out exactly where it went in, with 33 Republicans, 15 Democrats, and one independent, after four seats changed hands and cancelled out. Thirty-three is the number needed to break a filibuster.
• Nebraska was the first state to put two competing abortion measures on one ballot, and the first where voters bucked the national trend of approving abortion-rights measures: Initiative 434, writing a first-trimester limit into the constitution, passed with 55 percent, while Initiative 439, guaranteeing a right to abortion until viability, fell just short at 49 percent.
• The four seats that changed hands, two in each direction:
  • Margo Juarez, a Democrat, won District 5 in South Omaha, the seat Sen. Mike McDonnell had taken to the Republican side when he switched parties in April.
  • Bob Andersen, a Republican, knocked off Sen. Jen Day, a Democrat, in District 49, giving Republicans back the 33rd vote needed to break a filibuster.
  • In Grand Island's District 35, Democrat Dan Quick unseated Sen. Ray Aguilar, a Republican, by about 135 votes.
  • Republican Dave Wordekemper won the open District 15 seat of term-limited Sen. Lynne Walz, a Democrat.
• The closest race was North Omaha's District 13, where Ashlei Spivey led Nick Batter by 41 votes on election night and held on. Gov. Jim Pillen had hoped for a larger Republican bloc, telling Omaha's WOWT he was "a little disappointed. I thought we'd be at 35." Across the 25 legislative races, 2 incumbents were defeated, 2 races finished inside two points, and 2 seats drew a single candidate.
• The four remaining measures all passed with room to spare. Initiative 436 (paid sick leave) took 75 percent. Initiative 437 and Initiative 438 legalized medical marijuana and created a commission to regulate it, though both were challenged in a signature-fraud trial; a district judge rejected the challenge three weeks after the election. On Referendum 435, voters repealed the scholarship program that sent state money to private schools, the third time since 1966 that Nebraskans have rejected public money for private K-12 schools.

Legislature

• Legislature (49 seats): 17 D, 32 R before the election, 15 D, 33 R, 1 other or vacant after; control stayed with Republicans.

Statewide races

Legislative races

Ballot measures