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United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska, 2018
- General election: Nov. 6
- Voter registration deadline: Oct. 19
- Early voting: Oct. 9 - Nov. 5
- Absentee voting deadline: Nov. 6
- Online registration: Yes
- Same-day registration: No
- Voter ID: No
- Poll times: 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Central Time and 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Mountain Time
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May 15, 2018 |
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The 2018 U.S. House of Representatives elections in Nebraska took place on November 6, 2018. Voters elected three candidates to serve in the U.S. House, one from each of the state's three congressional districts.
Partisan breakdown
Heading into the November 6 election, the Republican Party held all three of the congressional seats from Nebraska.
| Members of the U.S. House from Nebraska -- Partisan Breakdown | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | As of November 2018 | After the 2018 Election | |
| Democratic Party | 0 | 0 | |
| Republican Party | 3 | 3 | |
| Total | 3 | 3 | |
Incumbents
Heading into the 2018 election, the incumbents for the three congressional districts were:
| Name | Party | District |
|---|---|---|
| Jeff Fortenberry |  Republican |
1 |
| Don Bacon | Republican |
2 |
| Adrian Smith | Republican |
3 |
2016 Pivot Counties
Nebraska featured one congressional district that intersects with one or more Pivot Counties. These 206 Pivot Counties voted for Donald Trump (R) in 2016 after voting for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012.
The 206 Pivot Counties were located in 34 states. Iowa, with 31, had the most such counties. The partisan makeup of the 108 congressional districts intersecting with Pivot Counties was more Republican than the partisan breakdown of the U.S. House. Of the 108 congressional districts that had at least one Pivot County, 63 percent were held by a Republican incumbent, while 55.4 percent of U.S. House seats were won by a Republican in the 2016 elections.[1]
Candidates
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District 1
General election
General election candidates
- Jeffrey Fortenberry (Incumbent) (Republican Party) ✔
- Jessica McClure (Democratic Party)
Primary candidates
Democratic primary candidates
Republican primary candidates
- Jeffrey Fortenberry (Incumbent) ✔
District 2
General election
General election candidates
- Don Bacon (Incumbent) (Republican Party) ✔
- Kara Eastman (Democratic Party)
= candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey
Primary candidates
Democratic primary candidates
= candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey
Republican primary candidates
- Don Bacon (Incumbent) ✔
District 3
General election
General election candidates
- Adrian Smith (Incumbent) (Republican Party) ✔
- Paul Theobald (Democratic Party)
Primary candidates
Democratic primary candidates
Republican primary candidates
- Adrian Smith (Incumbent) ✔
- Larry Bolinger
- Arron Kowalski
- Kirk Penner
Wave election analysis
- See also: Wave elections (1918-2016)
The term wave election is frequently used to describe an election cycle in which one party makes significant electoral gains. How many seats would Republicans have had to lose for the 2018 midterm election to be considered a wave election?
Ballotpedia examined the results of the 50 election cycles that occurred between 1918 and 2016—spanning from President Woodrow Wilson's (D) second midterm in 1918 to Donald Trump's (R) first presidential election in 2016. We define wave elections as the 20 percent of elections in that period resulting in the greatest seat swings against the president's party.
Applying this definition to U.S. House elections, we found that Republicans needed to lose 48 seats for 2018 to qualify as a wave election.
The chart below shows the number of seats the president's party lost in the 11 U.S. House waves from 1918 to 2016. Click here to read the full report.
| U.S. House wave elections | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | President | Party | Election type | House seats change | House majority[2] | |
| 1932 | Hoover | R | Presidential | -97 | D | |
| 1922 | Harding | R | First midterm | -76 | R | |
| 1938 | Roosevelt | D | Second midterm | -70 | D | |
| 2010 | Obama | D | First midterm | -63 | R (flipped) | |
| 1920 | Wilson | D | Presidential | -59 | R | |
| 1946 | Truman | D | First midterm | -54 | R (flipped) | |
| 1994 | Clinton | D | First midterm | -54 | R (flipped) | |
| 1930 | Hoover | R | First midterm | -53 | D (flipped) | |
| 1942 | Roosevelt | D | Third midterm | -50 | D | |
| 1966 | Johnson | D | First midterm[3] | -48 | D | |
| 1974 | Ford | R | Second midterm[4] | -48 | D | |
See also
- United States Senate election in Nebraska, 2018
- United States House of Representatives elections, 2018
- U.S. House battlegrounds, 2018
- U.S. House primaries, 2018
Footnotes
- ↑ The raw data for this study was provided by Dave Leip of Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.
- ↑ Denotes the party that had more seats in the U.S. House following the election.
- ↑ Lyndon Johnson's (D) first term began in November 1963 after the death of President John F. Kennedy (D), who was first elected in 1960. Before Johnson had his first midterm in 1966, he was re-elected president in 1964.
- ↑ Gerald Ford's (R) first term began in August 1974 following the resignation of President Richard Nixon (R), who was first elected in 1968 and was re-elected in 1972. Because Ford only served for two full months before facing the electorate, this election is classified as Nixon's second midterm.
