Independent candidate from Norfolk launches bid for 1st Congressional District race

An independent candidate is launching a campaign for the 1st Congressional District race, which recently saw incumbent Republican Mike Flood and Democrat Chris Backemeyer win the partisan primary tickets.

Austin Ahlman, 28, on Thursday announced his run for the seat. The 1st Congressional District covers a large portion of eastern Nebraska, including the cities of Lincoln and Norfolk. His announcement struck a pointed tone against politicians, specifically Flood, who take money from corporate political action committees and vote with party leadership to “pass massive tax cuts to millionaires and corporations while gutting health, food and education assistance programs.”

Flood, who’s held the office since 2022, has supported legislation under President Trump, including the One Big Beautiful Bill, now nicknamed the “Working Family Tax Credits” ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The bill made nearly $1 trillion in federal cuts to Medicaid spending between 2025 and 2034. The same legislation created the Rural Health Transformation Fund to funnel $50 billion into rural healthcare, but healthcare advocates have warned that it won’t make up for the large slashes to Medicaid. Several small hospitals have said the change in funding will force them to downsize or close.

Ahlman said his fight against "corporate monopolies and political corruption” is personal. His parents both worked on the meatpacking line at the Tyson Foods plant in Norfolk that closed in 2006. He said the same fate impacted thousands of families in Lexington, where the Tyson Foods plant there closed earlier this year.

“Politicians could have helped stop this, but they didn’t have the courage,” Ahlman said in his Thursday announcement.

A spokesperson for Flood called Ahlman's campaign an example of Democratic infighting, claiming Ahlman is trying to sabotage the campaign of a Democratic White House advisor.

"While Backemeyer and Ahlman fight over which DC transplant finishes second, Congressman Flood will keep getting things done for Nebraskans." Flood spokesperson Daniel Bass said.

Ahlman pointed to fellow independent Dan Osborn’s current campaign against U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts. Ahlman’s campaign video released Thursday was shot in Norfolk and made it a point to show that his campaign is banking with Elkhorn Valley Bank & Trust and using local union print shops in Lincoln and Omaha.

Since Ahlman isn't running with a party affiliation, he will need to petition onto the general election ballot. According to the Nebraska Secretary of State's Office, Ahlman will need to collect at least 2,000 valid signatures from voters in the 1st Congressional District to get onto the ballot.

"I think most people these days are independents," Ahlman said in a Thursday interview with Nebraska Public Media News. "They do feel pretty fed up with things."

He said he'd like the country's spending to refocus on the U.S. and not in conflicts abroad.

"There is so much money from Americans' pockets being poured into other countries, armies to fight wars in places that we couldn't even find on a map. And I think think this is one area where current voters in the this district don't have a choice," he said. "The blue-haired baristas are not the ones stealing peoples' way of life. Your uncle, who's perhaps a little gung ho at Thanksgiving, is not the one stealing your way of life. It's Tyson; it's Google; it's Facebook; it's every other corproation that is putting the squeeze and pressure on communities like mine and ripping us apart."

Ahlman, who's been an investigative reporter for left-leaning outlets The American Prospect and The Intercept, said he moved back to Norfolk in 2025 to fight “the bank to keep his family home” and care for his father after his diagnosis. He’s now in remission. His mother died by suicide earlier this year.

Ahlman lives in Norfolk with his husband, Noah, who he met when he attended Macalester College in Minnesota.