Brinker Harding

Running for Representative - District 2 in Nebraska

Downloadable Report Card

Called Trump's Economic Record 'Great Things' While Tariffs Squeezed Nebraska Businesses
Backs Trump's War with Iran That Raised Costs for Nebraskans
Backs Health Care Cuts for Nebraskans
Supports Policies That Hurt Nebraska Seniors
Backed Deep SNAP Cuts — Then Told Voters Congress Should Protect SNAP
Takes Developers' Money While Voting on Their Projects
Ran for Congress Seven Weeks After Winning a New Four-Year Council Term
Proposed Criminalizing Homelessness
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Called Trump's Economic Record 'Great Things' While Tariffs Squeezed Nebraska Businesses

Trump's tariffs cost Nebraska importers an estimated $480 million in a single year, and the businesses that paid have little hope of getting it back. Brinker Harding says Trump has been "doing great things."

Harding told Roll Call in April 2026 that Trump has been "doing great things", adding: "We've got tax relief for families. We've got 'no tax on tips.' I can go through the list."
The small-business group We Pay the Tariffs estimates Nebraska importers paid more than $480 million in tariffs from spring 2025 through spring 2026, and Lincoln Chamber of Commerce president Jason Ball said applying for a refund is "like trying to get Taylor Swift tickets when the Eras Tour popped up." State Sen. Megan Hunt, who runs an Omaha retail shop, said tariffs cost her business more than $16,000 and her refund application came up empty: "I honestly have zero faith that I'm going to get the money back."
In Lincoln, The Chocolate Season owner Erika Jensen told the Midwest Newsroom "Tariffs have definitely increased our costs" — with a limit to what customers will pay, absorbing them is the only option. Creighton economist Ernie Goss said the administration's "haphazard" economic policies are taking a toll on Nebraska manufacturers.
Nebraska Farm Bureau president Mark McHargue put it plainly: "In general, the tariff conversation makes our members nervous."

Brinker Harding praises an economic record that has raised costs for Nebraska businesses and farmers. We deserve better.

Backs Trump's War with Iran That Raised Costs for Nebraskans

Gas prices in Nebraska rose 29 percent in the two months after the U.S. attacked Iran, and diesel — the fuel that runs Nebraska agriculture — rose more than 50 percent nationally. On the day the war started, Brinker Harding celebrated.

The day the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, Harding posted that "Only the radical left would think killing America's number one enemy is a bad thing", and attacked his then-Democratic rival John Cavanaugh for having "a problem with the downfall of Iran's terrorist regime."
Within days, Nebraska's average price for a gallon of unleaded jumped 16 cents in a single day and 25 cents in a week. By April 22, 2026, Nebraska's average had gone from $2.75 the day before the war to $3.55 — a 29.1 percent increase, about $29 a month more for the average car.
Nationally, diesel rose 51 percent above prewar levels and urea fertilizer 27 percent — enough that a farmer running a single 200-gallon tractor pays at least $350 more per day. Nebraska Farm Bureau president Mark McHargue said the timing "couldn't be worse" with planting underway, and that inputs could be up "a 20% spike or better than a year ago... especially fertilizer and diesel."
By late April, Nebraska's average gas price hit $3.84 a gallon — up more than 80 cents from a year earlier, with diesel about $1 more, squeezing budgets for Lancaster County and the Lincoln Public Schools.
54.2 percent of rural bank CEOs across a 10-state region that includes Nebraska said their local economies were already in recession, with another 8.3 percent saying they were entering one — and the war in Iran, Nebraska Public Media reported, "is adding to an already difficult situation by driving up diesel fuel and fertilizer costs."

Brinker Harding cheered a war that raised costs for Nebraska families and farmers. We deserve better.

Backs Health Care Cuts for Nebraskans

Brinker Harding cheered the Big Beautiful Bill that put health coverage at risk for more than 23,000 people in his own district. He also promises to balance the federal budget while saving Social Security and Medicare — a combination budget analysts say does not add up.

On July 4, 2025, the day the bill was signed, Harding posted that "The One Big Beautiful Bill does just that—cutting taxes for working families and making our border & homeland more secure." Drawing on CBO's estimates, Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee put the law's toll in Nebraska's 2nd District at 15,757 people by 2034 — 7,600 losing ACA coverage and 8,157 losing Medicaid.
Harding says he will "balance the budget, and save critical programs like Social Security and Medicare." The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calculates that balancing within a decade would require cutting all federal spending by 27 percent — "the equivalent of ending all nondefense appropriations and eliminating the entire Medicaid program just to get to balance." The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reaches the same conclusion: there is "simply no way to significantly flatten the debt trajectory while shielding these programs from cuts without additional revenue."
More than 113,000 people in Nebraska's 2nd District are covered by Medicaid or CHIP.

Brinker Harding backed cutting health care for Nebraskans and promises a budget agenda that would cut it further. We deserve better.

Supports Policies That Hurt Nebraska Seniors

More than 383,000 Nebraskans are on Medicare, and more than 107,000 people in Nebraska's 2nd District collect Social Security. Brinker Harding endorsed a law that triggers hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts, and he is eager to work with the administration that broke the Social Security Administration.

The bill Harding endorsed will, absent further action by Congress, trigger $490 billion in Medicare cuts from 2027 to 2034 under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act, according to the CBO. Nebraska had 383,528 Medicare enrollees in 2024.
Accepting Trump's endorsement in April 2026, Harding wrote: "I look forward to working with you to Make Life More Affordable and Government More Accountable." Under that administration, DOGE's cuts sent the Social Security Administration into what The Washington Post called a breakdown — "Long waits, waves of calls, website crashes", with the agency's website crashing four times in ten days and blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from their accounts.
More than 107,000 people in Nebraska's 2nd District receive Social Security, nearly 87,000 of them aged 65 or older.

Brinker Harding backed legislation that triggers Medicare cuts and welcomed the administration that made Social Security harder to reach. We deserve better.

Backed Deep SNAP Cuts — Then Told Voters Congress Should Protect SNAP

Brinker Harding cheered the bill that cut food assistance for millions of families. Nine months later, he told a Nebraska voter guide that Congress's job was to "protect those programs."

Harding celebrated the Big Beautiful Bill on the day it was signed. Its SNAP changes may cause 22.3 million families to lose some or all of their benefits, according to Urban Institute research reported by CNBC.
Nearly 23,000 households in Nebraska's 2nd District rely on SNAP to afford groceries. Between July 2025 and June 2026, Nebraska's SNAP participation fell 17 percent.
Then, in April 2026, asked about federal nutrition programs in the Jewish Community Relations Council's voter guide, Harding wrote: "I support nutrition programs that serve the people who truly need them — children, seniors, veterans, the disabled and working families. Congress's job is to protect those programs and make sure they work as intended."

Brinker Harding helped cut food assistance first and promised to protect it later. We deserve better.

Takes Developers' Money While Voting on Their Projects

Our elected officials should work for us, the people.

Brinker Harding is a commercial real estate broker who has sat on the Omaha City Council since 2017, voting on the developments that reshape the city. He has raised $2,034,386 for this campaign, and almost none of it comes from ordinary people: just 2.6% arrived in donations small enough to go unnamed - one of the lowest small-donor shares of any candidate on this site. Nearly two thirds came from large individual donors.

Look at what those donors do for a living.

SRE Companies - about $28,000, his single largest source. SRE is an Omaha firm that develops, builds and operates commercial real estate and residential subdivisions. Harding sits on the council that decides what gets built in Omaha.
The rest of Omaha's development industry - roughly $47,500 more. Noddle Companies, Sampson Construction, Hausmann Construction, Morrissey Engineering and Moehn Electrical Sales each gave, along with the employee-owners' fund at the engineering giant HDR and the National Association of Home Builders. Developers, builders, engineers and electrical contractors - the people whose projects come before his council.
DCI Group - about $28,000. A Washington public relations and lobbying firm that runs advocacy campaigns for corporate clients, and has lobbied for the tobacco company Altria. It is tied with SRE as the biggest employer-based source of money in his campaign - for a candidate whose pitch is that Washington has been captured by insiders.
Omaha's corporate establishment. The trucking company Werner Enterprises, the energy developer Tenaska and First National Bank all gave through their employee funds.
Governor Jim Pillen's family business - about $14,000, split between Pillen Family Farms and Pillen Dairy Farms.
Republican leadership in Washington. Steve Scalise gave through both his leadership PAC and his campaign committee, and fellow Nebraska Republicans Don Bacon and Adrian Smith each sent money from their own campaign accounts.

And there is one more thing Harding's donors know that Nebraska voters did not. He campaigns on banning congressional stock trading and says too many members of Congress have "turned the public's trust into personal benefit." For ten months he ignored the federal law requiring candidates to disclose what they own - filing only after a national news outlet reported it and the state Democratic Party referred him to the Justice Department. Read the full story.

Brinker Harding votes on Omaha's developments and is funded by the people who build them - and he had to be forced to show voters his own finances. We deserve better.

Ran for Congress Seven Weeks After Winning a New Four-Year Council Term

Brinker Harding told a Nebraska voter guide that a good representative does not arrive in Washington and start "optimizing for their own re-election or their own career." He asked Omaha voters for a new four-year council term and started running for Congress seven weeks later.

Harding won re-election to Omaha City Council District 6 on May 13, 2025, with 92.9 percent of the vote, for a term that runs through 2029.
Seven weeks later, on July 1, 2025, he announced a campaign for Congress — the first Republican in the race after Don Bacon confirmed he would not seek re-election.
In the JCRC voter guide, Harding wrote: "A good representative remembers that the job isn't about them. Too many people arrive in Washington and start optimizing for their own re-election or their own career. The people who sent them there become an afterthought."

Brinker Harding said all the right things about career politicians — while running for a promotion he had just asked Omaha voters not to worry about. We deserve better.

Proposed Criminalizing Homelessness

Brinker Harding says he shows up and stays accountable to the people he represents. In September 2025 he proposed fining and jailing people for sleeping outside in Omaha — over the objections of the mayor and nearly a dozen homeless service providers.

The ordinance Harding introduced would ban camping on public property and punish it with a fine of up to $300, up to 30 days in jail, or both. He told KETV he brought it because encampments seemed to be "popping up" more and that he wanted "a win-win for both those in the situation and the general public."
Omaha Mayor John Ewing and nearly a dozen service providers asked the council for time to identify encampments and connect people to health and housing instead. "We disagree with an approach where individuals would be arrested and criminalized for being homeless," Ewing said. Harding countered that the fines were meant not to criminalize homelessness but to give people access to a public defender.

Brinker Harding answered homelessness with fines and jail time while the mayor and the city's own providers asked for housing. We deserve better.

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