1st Congressional District - Nebraska

Chris Backemeyer (Democratic Party)
Mike Flood (Incumbent) (Republican Party)
Nik Sandman  (Libertarian Party)
Austin Ahlman (Independent)

Rep. Mike Flood continues to be a strong supporter of President Trump’s authoritarian agenda.  He has provided only occasional comments of concern, but almost always votes to support the Trump agenda. In our personal meetings with Rep. Flood, he acknowledged and spoke to many of our specific concerns, but he also defended the current Administration’s policies and showed no intent to actively stand up and resist the authoritarian Trump agenda nor actively defend the important independent role of Congress.   At this time, Rep. Flood provides one more vote that helps to maintain the Republican Party control of the House of Representatives and therefore the rubber-stamping of the Trump Administration’s authoritarian agenda.  From our current perspective, Rep. Flood has not honored his oath of office to defend the Constitution and does not deserve re-election.  

Chris Backemeyer is the Democratic Party’s nominee for the First Congressional District following an open Primary Election contest between him and Eric Moyer.  Both were quality candidates and ran positive campaigns.  Mr. Backemeyer was the primary election winner with a solid majority of the votes (https://backnebraska.com/).   Mr Backemeyer is a native Nebraskan who also has a significant amount of practical experience in policy development and implementation as part of his service in the U.S. State Department.  Mr. Backemeyer has spoken about the need to claw back $75 billion in excess funding from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to prohibit the use of any federal funds to detain children, and also the need to refocus Department of Homeland Security on its core mission by limiting unilateral expansions of detention facilities and restricting operations to the enforcement of immigration law.

Nik Sandman is the Libertarian Party candidate and Austin Ahlman is a post-primary declared, independent candidate into the First Congressional District race.  Mr. Ahlman’s campaign is in the process of collecting the required signatures to appear on the ballot in November.  In our opinion, the candidacy of both Mr. Sandman and Mr. Ahlman will serve primarily as spoiler roles, splitting the pro-democracy votes  in what opinion polls show to be a very close race.  It is unfortunate that Mr. Ahlman chose to not enter the race until after the Primary Election so that his positions and viability as a candidate could have been explored during the primary campaign.

Over the course of the campaign, both Mr. Backemeyer and Rep. Flood should be questioned about their positions on voting rights, human rights, Congressional oversight, Congress’s role in declaring war, and their interpretation of the Congressional oath of office. 

However, at this time, we believe that the election of Chris Backemeyer would more likely further the defense of our democracy rather than the re-election of Mike Flood.