1st District Candidates Flood and Blood Agree to Debate at Nebraska Public Media • Nebraska Examiner

LINCOLN – Voters in eastern Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District will have the opportunity to watch the debate between their top candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives live on Nebraska Public Media TV.

Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Flood of Norfolk and Democratic Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue have agreed to participate in an hour-long debate at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 15, in the public broadcaster’s Ron Hull Studio on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s east campus.

Options for tracking

Nebraska Public Media is hosting the debate in partnership with the Nebraska Examiner, the Lincoln Journal Star, the Omaha World-Herald and the KRVN Rural Radio Network. Aaron Sanderford, political reporter for the Nebraska Examiner, will moderate. He and other reporters from participating media outlets will question the candidates.

The debate will be covered by partner organizations, some of which will offer ways to watch or listen to the debate if you don’t have a TV or radio, in addition to live broadcasts on television, radio and the Internet from Nebraska Public Media.

“We are excited to give voters in Congressional District 1 and across the state the opportunity to hear what these candidates have to say,” Jay Omar, news director for Nebraska Public Media, said in a statement Monday. “I appreciate the willingness of both candidates to participate and the hard work of our media partners.”

Long records

Flood is a former speaker of the Nebraska Legislature and served a second term in the state legislature before running in a special election and a regular election in 2022 to replace former Republican Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, who resigned from office. Flood is the owner of News Channel Nebraska.

Flood was known in the legislature for leading the effort to set the state’s abortion ban at 20 weeks, the time at which he and medical experts argued on his behalf that a fetus could feel pain. He pushed for additional restrictions, a so-called trigger banbefore the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned. blood voted against the billLegislative Bill 933, in 2022, and has said she would oppose additional restrictions on abortion.

During his first two years in Congress, he criticized illegal immigration. He argued that the Biden administration’s tax and spending policies contributed to inflation. He has championed cryptocurrency and hosted a “Flyover Fintech” conference at UNL.

A former Bellevue City Council member and gubernatorial candidate who is term-limited after eight years in the legislature, Blood has spent much of her career pushing state senators to weigh the impact of state mandates on cities and counties and their local taxpayers.

She has said she wants lawmakers to lay out the impact on local government in a budget memo on any bill proposed with a state mandate for local government before passing the bill, and she has proposed requiring that. She also stresses that her work on veteransbecause Offutt Air Force Base is located in their district.

She criticized Flood for profiling himself as a bipartisan protector of the legislature’s nonpartisan traditions and then going to Washington, D.C., to display partisanship. She also blamed the partisan nature of Congress for what many Americans see as the body’s dysfunction.

Keep fighting

The Sarpy County resident faces a tough battle in the 1st District outside Lancaster County, where Lincoln is one of the state’s largest Democratic Party voting blocs. Flood is from Norfolk, a center of a rural part of the county that tends to vote Republican.

Flood has raised $1.56 million this election cycle and has $500,589 in cash on hand. Blood has raised $58,622 and has $19,661 in cash on hand through the end of June, according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks federal campaign finance filings.