So this morning I’m thinking about Nebraska’s primary elections coming up and who’s actually running, right? Feels important but I got zero clue where to even start. Like coffee hasn’t kicked in yet but I gotta dig in.
First thing? Head straight to the Nebraska Secretary of State’s website – figure they gotta have the official stuff. Spent like twenty minutes clicking around, totally lost. Where do they even hide the candidate lists? Finally stumbled into this section called “Elections” and bam, a PDF popped up. “Candidate Filings” or whatever. Downloaded that sucker immediately.
The PDF Nightmare Begins
Opened the PDF and my eyes just glazed over. Man, it was packed – pages and pages of names, offices, districts. Felt like looking at alphabet soup. “Right,” I told myself, “need to organize this mess.”
Fired up a blank spreadsheet. Started simple: three columns.
- Position (Like Senator, Governor, whatever)
- District Number (If it had one)
- Candidate Name
Started the slow crawl. Scanned each page, typed names one by one. Copy-paste? Nah, formatting was whack – names jumping lines, weird spaces. Total manual slog.
Names, Names Everywhere
Got maybe halfway through Senate races when I hit overload. “Hold up,” I thought, “who ARE these people anyway?” The PDF just listed names, not parties or anything useful. How do you even tell who’s who? This official list felt useless for actual understanding.
Realized I needed context. Dumped the spreadsheet temporarily and jumped over to Ballotpedia. Searched “Nebraska elections 2024.” Jackpot. They actually grouped races sensibly:
- U.S. Senate (Gotta know who might challenge Fischer)
- House Districts (All three seats)
- State Executives (Governor was a biggie)
- State Legislature (Way too many districts!)
- Local Stuff (Ignored most of these for now, too deep)
Cross-Referencing Hell
Opened my dumb spreadsheet again next to Ballotpedia. Now it was detective work. Took each race from Ballotpedia – say, the Governor’s race. Found who filed on the SOS list: Pillen, sure. Anyone else? Yep, two guys named Hoogendoorn and Walz. Typed ’em in. Checked party IDs from Ballotpedia, added a party column. Rinse and repeat for every dang seat. This part took forever. Kept switching tabs, double-checking spellings. Thought my fingers might cramp.
The Big Reveals (and Headaches)
Slowly, patterns emerged. Stuff stood out:
- Senate: Fischer sitting kinda pretty? Only one guy, Dan Frei, filed against her so far. Easy primary?
- House Seat Mayhem: District 1 was wild – Democrats fielding four candidates? Republicans got three names plus McCarthy (Ballotpedia said she dropped out, but SOS still listed her! Ugh, outdated?)
- District 2: Battle royal! Republicans have six names? Gotta be messy. Don Bacon sweating maybe?
- Governor: Pillen got challengers? Hoogendoorn and Walz. Who even are they? Ballotpedia bios were thin.
Finally, “Done” (Sorta)
When the spreadsheet felt “filled enough,” I leaned back. Glanced at the clock. Crap, almost two hours gone! My back hurt from slouching. The end result? A somewhat organized list that finally made sense:
- Governor (R: Pillen, Hoogendoorn, Walz? Need fact-check)
- U.S. Senate (R: Fischer, Frei)
- District 1 (D: Cooke, Stephens, Wilson, Wilson? Wait two Wilsons?!)
- District 2 (R: Frei, Ghosn, Harris, Johnson, Reagan, Wynne)
- District 3 (R: Smith)
Still felt like surface stuff. Tons of state legislative seats barely glanced at. Key races jumped out though – District 2 chaos, Senate surprisingly quiet, Governor intrigue. Biggest takeaway? Don’t ever trust just the official state filing list alone. It’s a skeleton. Gotta hunt down context or you’re lost. Total beast of a job for something that sounds simple.
