Who is ahead in the 2026 Nebraska Governor race?

Name: Governor, Nebraska, Vugol Vector & Vugol Attention
Creator: Vugol Me
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Jim Pillen (R) won the NE Governor race. Pillen leads Walz by 5.9 points in our average of verified polls. Verified poll average · 5 polls · newest poll ended 2026-10-29. Updated 2026-11-14.

Home / Races / Nebraska / Governor

NE2026

Governor · Nebraska · 2026

General election · 4 on the certified November ballot · Incumbent running

VecR 47 · HeldTenR 87%Att46

TV graphic Vugol race poll

Result

Called

Jim Pillen (R) won this race.

Jim PillenRepublicanIncumbentWinnerno count in the source

Also on the ballot, no count in the source: Brett Lindstrom (I), Lynne Walz (D), Rick Beard (I).

Called: Called by Wikipedia editors, Nov 4, 2:57 AM ET (revision)
Last updated: Nov 7, 8:53 AM ET
Source: Wikipedia (race summary table) · official results page

Called it: hit Our locked call before polls closed was R; the winner is R. See every locked call

Unofficial until the state certifies the result.

Before the election

Polls, ratings and the Vugol Tensor below were published before votes were counted. They are not results.

Race poll averageGovernor · Nebraska

Lynne Walz

43%

Jim Pillen

RIncumbent

49%

Verified poll average · 5 polls · newest poll ended 2026-10-298% other

R · Tiltingfrom verified polls

Verified polls Pillen leads Walz by 5.9 points in our average of verified polls.

5 verified polls averaged, newest ended 2026-10-29. Page updated 2026-11-14. Sources · What is validated

ExperimentalNews attention 46/100, how much coverage the race gets, not who is winning. Updated 2 days ago. How it works

On the Nebraska ballot, Nov 3, 2026 Governor and Lt. Governor, 4 names on the official list. Election Day has passed; see the ballot as it was.Voting in Nebraska? Check your registration, get a mail ballot, find your polling place.

On the November ballot (4)

Certified by the state on 2026-09-11, checked 2026-11-14.

Jim PillenGovernor - NERepublican IncumbentOn the ballotFEC raisednot on file Brett LindstromGovernor - NEOtherOn the ballotFEC raisednot on file Lynne WalzGovernor - NEDemocraticOn the ballotFEC raisednot on file Rick BeardGovernor - NEOtherOn the ballotFEC raisednot on file

Official source: https://sos.nebraska.gov/sites/default/files/doc/elections/2026/Final_Statewide_General_Candidate_Filing_List_9.11.26.pdf

Polling average · 5 verified pollsVerified

Pillen +5.9

Lynne Walz Democratic: 43.1%
Jim Pillen Republican: Incumbent49%
Brett Lindstrom 4.9%
Rick Beard Libertarian: 3%

Latest verified field polling

Verified = published by the pollster that conducted it, with a public source we link to.

5 verified polls

Latest verified pollVerified

Pillen +13

Lynne Walz Democratic: 40%
Jim Pillen Republican: 53%

Other 0% · Undecided 7%

Cite / verify

Cite thishttps://vugol.me/races/US-NE-GOV

Sourcehttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/10/31/polls/times-siena-ne-poll-toplines.html

Retrieved2026-11-14

Polling average Updates as polls arrive

5 verified inputs

49.0% Jim Pillen43.1% Lynne Walz4.9% Brett Lindstrom3.0% Rick Beard

Jim Pillen (R)Lynne Walz (D)Rick Beard (L)Brett Lindstrom (A)● verified poll · ○ quarantined poll · ◎ live average

Vugol Tensor

How far this poll average can miss · a range, not a prediction

tensor-1.0.0

Centre R+5.9. Four times in five the result lands between D+0.8 and R+12.6; nine in ten between D+2.7 and R+14.5. Chance the Democrat finishes ahead: 13%.

Same inputs as the Vugol Tensor page: the verified polling average above (5 verified polls), plus how far polls have missed since 1998. In the backtest the plain poll average picked the wrong winner in about 11% of polled, mostly competitive races (11.2%, 946 races, 1998 to 2024), and polls miss together. Not a forecast guarantee. How Tensor works →

Results

Vote counts as reported by the state; transcribed from the Wikipedia election article (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites the state’s official results.

Democratic primary

Lynne Walz won	116,458	91.5%
Larry Marvin	10,847	8.5%

Nebraska Legal Marijuana NOW Party primary · official results

Rick Beard won	349	69.1%
James Charvat	156	30.9%

Republican primary

Jim Pillen (incumbent) won	142,301	75.4%
John Walz	18,066	9.6%
Sheila Korth-Focken	14,621	7.8%
Gary Rogge	6,986	3.7%
Jacy Todd	5,125	2.7%
Sal Holguin	1,612	0.9%

Source: Wikipedia article revision (CC BY-SA 4.0), retrieved 2026-11-14 · parser wiki-race-1.0.0

Key dates

Official federal election dates for this state from the FEC. Registration deadlines and early voting: see the state election office.

2026-05-12, Primary election: U.S. House
2026-11-03, General election: U.S. House

Source: FEC election dates (public domain).

In the news

Republican AGs stand ready as 'last line of defense' against leftist policies after dismal midterms for partyFox News · Nov 5
Rating changes: 30 races shift toward DemocratsRoll Call · Oct 20
Fox News Power Rankings: Trump country at a crossroadsFox News · Oct 20
Trump signs executive order mid-rally allowing drivers to use ‘tax-free red-dye diesel’ to lower fuel costsNew York Post · Oct 5
Bill and Hillary Clinton make eleventh-hour midterm moves as party's old guard faces new realityFox News · Oct 15
Trump rallies in city where alleged MS-13 ‘assassination squad’ leader was bustedFox News · Oct 5

Headlines from outlets across the political spectrum, linked to the publisher. Vugol.me doesn’t write or endorse them. How we choose them · All election news

Lab

Vugol Vector & Vugol Attention

Vugol Attention 46 Vugol Vector R · Held

Vugol Me model signals, not polls. Verified polling is in the Polls section above.

Vugol Me Attention (attention intensity)

Vugol Attention intensity index 0–100 · not a poll · normalized nightly

attention-1.0.0

46OUT OF 100Moderate attention

Vugol Attention percentile71th

7-day momentum1 / 100

Source breadth50% of tracked

Vugol Vector

Proprietary ensemble model · a call, not a probability · model confidence: high

vector-1.1.0

Democratic leanOpen centerRepublican lean

AnchoredHeldTiltingOpenTiltingHeldAnchored

Completeness4 of 7 inputs (national, prior, pres, incumbent) · missing: money, pulse, poll

Evidenceno audit release · fundamentals only

Freshnessoldest input 2026-11-12 (2 days ago)

The breakdown of this call (the model's multi-signal input matrix, input by input) is on Ultra Pro plans.

Desk data: daily telemetry

Per-source daily series, CSV export and the Vugol Vector breakdown · paid plans

Sources

Roster, official filings; fundraising from FEC datapoints where on file (https://api.open.fec.gov/).
Vugol Attention inputs, Wikipedia pageviews (https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/) and GDELT news volume and tone (https://www.gdeltproject.org/).
Polls and results, individual polls and primary results listed on the Wikipedia election article (CC BY-SA 4.0), each poll linked to the pollster's release; money and election dates from the FEC (public domain). How rows are checked.
Models attention-1.0.0 · vector-1.1.0 · attention inputs SHA-256 c8a9bc2270a8 · methodology · license CC BY 4.0 (data license).

Vugol Vector band: R · Held. Have a say in the Vugol race poll; it is open to signed-in voters and never feeds these numbers.

The four Vugol signals, side by side

They answer different questions and are kept apart. Full method: Methodology.

Vugol Vector: Our call for every race if today’s polls hold. A snapshot, not a win probability or a vote share.
Vugol Tensor: How sure we are: ranges and chamber-control odds around the Vector, built from past polling error. An experiment about uncertainty, not a better guess.
Vugol Attention: How much news and online noise a race gets, 0 to 100. It measures noise, not support: a high score says nothing about who is ahead.
Vugol Pulse: Our daily thumbs-up or thumbs-down question for readers. Anyone can answer, so it describes our readers, not the public. It is not a vote and never enters a poll average or any other signal.