Candidates Prepared to Fight for 'Most Flippable Legislative Seat' This Cycle

by Matt Johnson

(Photo credit Matt Johnson)

OMAHA — Merv Riepe has seen an election like this before in District 12. In his first bid for re-election in 2018, Riepe faced a blue wave and lost to Steve Lathrop. In 2022, Riepe returned to the legislature for another four-year term, but now he faces more headwinds heading into the general election in 2026.

District 12 is viewed as both a purple district and highly flippable in this election cycle. The district narrowly supported Sen. Pete Ricketts in 2024 (0.6%) and Gov. Jim Pillen in 2022 (0.8%), but it also carried Kamala Harris and US Senate candidate Dan Osborn in 2024 by 2.3% and 14.8%, respectively.

Christy Knorr, who describes herself as “a hospice nurse, an advocate, an everyday Nebraskan, and a proud lifelong Democrat,” sees this as her seat to win. She is a financial underdog in this race, raising only about $10,000 in this cycle compared to over $100,000 by Riepe, according to data from the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission (NADC). However, while Riepe came in first in the May primary, he received only 39% of the vote out of four candidates, with Knorr a close second at 34.6%.

“District 12 is widely viewed as the most flippable legislative seat,” Knorr said at a recent campaign event in Ralston. “If you look at our numbers post-primary, you can see that. I was within 153 votes of Merv. My budget—I spent $3.86 a vote. Everybody might not understand that statement, but that’s unheard of in this day and age.”

Abortion as Impetus for Knorr’s Campaign

When speaking to The Plains Sentinel, Knorr described the impetus for her campaign as what she called a broken promise by Riepe. She cited Riepe’s handling of physician protections in connection with the 12-week abortion ban in the “Let Them Grow Act.”

“He had promised physicians that he would give them protections in the 12-week abortion ban bill, and he did not do it. He did not keep his word,” Knorr said. “And that was the day I let him know I was coming to take his seat.”

Riepe says Knorr is “under-informed.” He explained that he later sponsored a bill (LB 1109) to add protections for physicians in abortions involving fatal fetal anomalies in the following session, where former State Senator Julie Slama and others moved to “kill it” before it arrived at committee.

“She made a motion and others went along with it, particularly some of the pro-life people, to send it to judiciary instead, which in the business is known as the graveyard for health and human service projects,” Riepe told The Plains Sentinel. “They killed it in committee. So I recognized the need for it, wanted to do it, and the physicians—and this is important—the physicians who were supporting that bill cowered out.”

Support for Ballot Initiatives

One of Knorr’s top issues at her campaign event was supporting recent ballot initiatives approved by voters in her district, including medical marijuana, paid sick leave, and raising the minimum wage—all under the banner of supporting “the will of LD 12 voters.”

“LD 12 voted for medical cannabis. Senator Riepe couldn’t even show up for patients when it truly mattered,” Knorr said. “LD 12 voted for paid sick leave and to raise the minimum wage. Senator Riepe voted with Jim Pillen to undermine the voters’ intent every single time. This is not representation.”

The Nebraska Legislature is currently able to amend ballot initiatives with a supermajority of 33 votes—though a current ballot initiative aims to make this even harder by pushing the threshold to 40.

In 2025, Sen. Beau Ballard introduced LB 415, which narrowed the coverage of the paid sick leave initiative to companies with 11 or more employees and would not apply to employees who were seasonal or temporary agricultural workers, under age 16, or worked fewer than 80 hours in a calendar year. Merv Riepe voted for the bill.

When speaking to The Plains Sentinel, Riepe explained some of his other votes.

“On the minimum wage, we accepted the $15 [per hour] with the exception that we tweaked it down for 14- and 15-year-olds, which I believe is $13.50,” Riepe said. “I personally think that summer employment, a job, a first job, is very important. And we needed to give employers a very slight incentive to hire teenage 14- and 15-year-olds … Why would you hire an adult who’s trained and has job experience at the same price that you would hire a 14-year-old?”

On medical cannabis, Riepe said that he is a “fan” of it and cited President Trump moving it to a Schedule III drug, but he also said the legislature’s role is to provide guardrails.

“My background’s healthcare and coming out of a pediatric background, I can assure you that you don’t give the same amount of anything to a 50-pound child that you would give to a 70-pound child,” Riepe said. “And there was recently a story here in Omaha where the mom was taking a nap, the kids got into her purse, got the gummy bears and overdosed.”

Riepe also stated that he is not a fan of recreational marijuana, particularly as someone trained in respiratory therapy.

“I don’t believe anyone should put anything into their lungs—the smoke. And so it’s our obligation to try to correct some of this stuff.”

Finish Line in Sight

As the general election approaches, the swing vote in Ralston may soon be swinging to the left should the political winds persist in 2026 as they did in 2018. And Knorr believes she’s the candidate to flip the seat:

“We’ve been knocking on doors since October, talking to voters in every neighborhood on every block, and the message is the same everywhere we go: people want a senator who will work for them, not for special interests, not for big donors, not for political insiders, and certainly not for the governor.”

Riepe defended his voting record as a key point in his campaign.

“I have a record to stand on. She doesn’t have one vote, so she can say anything,” Riepe said. “I have to defend my actual votes, where I had to stand up and take a vote. And she hasn’t. She can speculate and say, ‘Well, you know, I would have done this, I would have done that.’ Maybe she would have, maybe she wouldn’t have.”

— Matt Johnson is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel.