Flood defeats Pansing Brooks in House race Local

Overcoming a strong show of support for Democratic nominee Patti Pansing Brooks in Lincoln, Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk won a special congressional election on Tuesday and retained a seat in the 1st District of East Nebraska in Republican hands.

Pansing Brooks, a Lincoln senator, held the lead at first, but Flood overtook in the second hour of the vote count and moved steadily to claim the seat vacated by Republican Jeff Fortenbury in March.

Lincoln-born Fortenbury resigned after being convicted of lying to federal officials about illegal foreign contributions to his 2016 re-election campaign, which paved the way for the county’s first special election in 1951.

The Associated Press announced Flood as the winner at 10:25 p.m. Tuesday.

“The Nebraskans made their voices loud and clear,” Flood said Tuesday night during his party on election night in Norfolk. “Tonight, they sent an unmistakable message to Washington that America was on the wrong track.

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Lancaster County was the only County 1st District to give its support to Pansing Brooks, who called on voters in the final days of the campaign to “turn the trough” in support of women’s rights following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week overturning the ruling. 1973 in the case of Roe v. Wade, which guarantees a woman the right to choose to have an abortion.

Bellevue voters also gave Pansing Brooks the lead, while other areas in Sarpy County turned the tide in Flood’s favor, leaving Lancaster as the only one of a dozen counties to be wholly or partly in the county that gave it a majority.

Flood, a former legislature president, won by a wide margin in a number of counties, garnering 80 percent or more of the vote in six counties, including Madison County, his home territory.

Flood will fill the remaining six months of Fortenberry’s term, and Flood and Pansing Brooks will reunite in November to serve a new two-year term, beginning in January.

Both won nominations for the May primary election and were selected to run in Tuesday’s snap election by the party leadership.

Pansing Brooks told her supporters at her party on election night at Alchemy in Lincoln that she was not discouraged and their work continued.

Democratic candidate in Congress Patti Pansing Brooks spoke to supporters on Tuesday at his election night at the Alchemy Aqua Vitae in Lincoln.

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“We know where we need to work more. “We know where we need to work smarter, and that’s what we’re going to do,” she said.

As Republicans are in the House majority in November, House Leader Kevin McCarthy of California came to Lincoln to campaign for Flood before the special election. If Republicans take control of the House, McCarthy is in a position to become a spokesman.

Flood said he received a congratulatory call from McCarthy earlier Tuesday.

It’s time for “the end of Washington’s magic money machine and the inflation it fuels,” Flood said.

During the campaign, Flood promised to fight Biden-Pelosi’s agenda at every turn.

“It’s time for a change of leadership,” he told supporters on Tuesday. “Nebraska women are ready for action that reflects common sense, the conservative values ​​that have made our state and nation great.

Democrats have not won a contest for the 1st District Chamber since 1964; since then, it has been 29 consecutive GOP victories, counting Tuesday’s special election. Republicans have a turnout over Democrats of more than 94,000.

The rematch in November for the next two-year term is likely to focus on the new incumbent’s vote.

Following Tuesday’s election, a five-member delegation from the Nebraska Congress will include three former U.S. senators. Senator Deb Fisher and Republican Adrian Smith of Goering have also previously served on the nonpartisan legislature.

The two candidates expressed serious differences over abortion rights in the last days of the campaign.

Pansing Brooks said “a majority of Americans and Nebraska residents disagree that abortion should be illegal.”

Flood praised the Supreme Court for “bringing abortion policies back to the states and the people where they belong.”

Gov. Pete Ricketts, who is considering convening a special session of the legislature later this year to review abortion laws in Nebraska, will appoint a new U.S. senator to succeed Flood.