Denise Powell (D) defeated Brinker Harding (R) and Eric Michael Foreman (L) in the general election for Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District on November 3, 2026.

Incumbent Don Bacon (R), first elected in 2016, did not run for re-election. The Nebraska Examiner's Juan Salinas II said, "Like in other cycles, election analysts view the district as a top pick-up opportunity for Democrats. The 2nd District includes all of Douglas and Saunders Counties, and a significant portion of suburban and rural Sarpy County. It also includes the state’s largest concentration of Democrats, even after it was redrawn after the last census to include a larger swath of Republican-leaning rural voters in Wahoo and surrounding areas." As of November 2026, major election forecasters rated the general election Safe Democratic, Likely Democratic, or Lean Democratic.

Bacon won re-election 51.3%–48.7% in 2022 and 50.9%–49.1% in 2024. That year, Kamala Harris (D) defeated Donald Trump (R) 51.6%–47.0% in the 2nd District.[2] There were eight Republican-held U.S. House districts up for election in 2026 that Kamala Harris (D) won in the 2024 presidential election.

Powell was a former corporate communications director and partner at an architecture firm. She co-founded the Women Who Run Nebraska political action committee. Powell's campaign website said she "is running for Congress because while our representatives say they’re fighting for us in Nebraska, they’re voting against us in Washington, DC. Every day, we see more of our friends and neighbors struggling to make ends meet while Donald Trump and MAGA extremists are focused on trade wars that are increasing our cost of living and passing massive tax breaks for billionaires like Elon Musk."

Harding was elected to the Omaha City Council in 2016. He earlier served as chief of staff to Omaha Mayor Hal Daub (R) and as an executive at an investment management firm. Harding's campaign website said, "Unlike in Washington, we have balanced the City of Omaha’s budget every single year. On the City Council, I have voted to lower Omaha’s property tax levy three times. And when most major cities are suffering from a 40% increase in violent crime, we have driven Omaha’s violent crime rate to historic 40-year lows. We didn’t defund our police, we gave them the record pay raise they deserve."

As of November 2, 2026, Powell had raised $5.09 million and Harding had raised $2.85 million.

The outcome of this race affected the partisan balance of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 120th Congress. All 435 U.S. House districts were up for election.

At the time of the election, Republicans had a 219-214 majority with two vacancies in the U.S. House.