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LINCOLN — Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen was predicting a 72% statewide voter turnout for the 2024 general election, an estimate based on early voting and turnout trends in recent general elections.
That’s in the same league as the statewide 76% turnout for the 2020 presidential election, which was fueled by overwhelming amounts of early voting connected to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Evnen, in a press release Monday, said county election offices have done a “remarkable job” of helping early voters cast their ballots securely.
“Nebraskans continue to fulfill the new voter ID requirement before voting, and we expect that to continue on Election Day,” he said.
Nebraska has 1,264,149 registered voters. As of Monday at noon, Evnen said, 332,455 registered voters had successfully cast ballots for the Nov. 5 general election.
Of those, 72,049 have voted early in person at county election offices and 260,406 have voted early by mail including voters in by-mail counties or precincts.
The election has been a costly endeavor for many candidates.
Nearly every Nebraska legislative race in this election cycle has surpassed six figures in spending ahead of Tuesday’s election, already climbing above 2022 records.
Together, legislative candidates had raised $9.2 million and spent $7.4 million as of the Oct. 21 campaign finance reporting deadline. The latest deadline leaves about two weeks of fundraising and spending before Election Day to report when final reports are due Jan. 14. In the final 10 days of the election,another $505,000 had already been raised.
Spending in 22 of the 25 races exceeded six figures by Oct. 21, and all but one race exceeded six figures in fundraising. The single fundraising exception is South Omaha’s Legislative District 5 between Margo Juarez and Gilbert Ayala. They raised $93,000 combined, most by Juarez.
A rematch between State Sen. Ray Aguilar and former State Sen. Dan Quick, both of Grand Island, exceeds $600,000 in spending, more than any race in 2022. Two Lincoln races — both involving senators appointed by Gov. Jim Pillen who are seeking election — sit at just under $550,000 spent.
The annual salary for a state senator is only $12,000.
Candidates who spent the most in 2022 legislative races won their elections in all but two cases. The most expensive race that year was about $577,000.
Aguilar and Quick, in Legislative District 35, also faced off in 2020 when Aguilar, term-limited from the Legislature 12 years prior, mounted a successful challenge to Quick.
Fundraising for the duo has exceeded $715,000, and spending sits at $603,000. Quick had a spending advantage of about $60,000, while Aguilar had a fundraising advantage of $30,000.
The next costliest races come in Lincoln between State Sen. Beau Ballard and Seth Derner (Legislative District 21) and between State Sen. Carolyn Bosn and Nicki Behmer Popp (Legislative District 25).
Ballard and Derner are neck-and-neck in spending, separated by the narrowest amount of all candidates, at $2,000 — Ballard at $275,000; Derner at $273,000. Ballard also had a fundraising edge of about $59,000.
Bosn has spent $341,000, about $135,000 above Behmer Popp’s $206,000. Bosn had raised $373,000, with $32,000 on hand; Behmer Popp had raised $219,000, with $14,000 on hand.
The other race exceeding $500,000 was in Bellevue between Felix Ungerman and Victor Rountree, both seeking to succeed term-limited Democratic State Sen. Carol Blood (Legislative District 3), spending a combined $508,000. Ungerman holds an edge of about $20,000 in spending and about $50,000 in fundraising.
These races could decide the partisan balance in the officially nonpartisan Legislature, currently at 33 Republicans, 15 Democrats and one progressive independent.
U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., has continued to take a sizable lead in contributing to legislative races, spending at least $252,500 across 15 legislative races so far this year. His wife, Susanne Shore, a Democrat, has donated $56,000 in eight campaigns, sometimes in direct odds with her husband.
