Lynne Walz of Fremont, center, leads a Legislature news conference in the Nebraska Capitol Rotunda on March 16, 2022.
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Zach Wendling
Nebraska Examiner
Former State Sen. Lynne Walz on Monday launched an exploratory committee to run for Nebraska governor in 2026, seeking to uplift Nebraskans’ concerns instead of their partisanship.
Walz, in an announcement interview with the Nebraska Examiner, said the state’s political system and economy are “broken.” She said she wants to hear from Nebraskans about their lives and work to find solutions together before formally launching a formal gubernatorial bid. Such arrangements let potential candidates raise money and gauge public support.
“This campaign is going to be a campaign for the people, and it’s my job, as far as I’m concerned, to go out and really listen to the people,” Walz said.
Walz said politicians, no matter their political stripes, are “no longer interested in fighting for the average person,” so she said it’s important to elect “average people” who know the real world. She’s a former fourth and fifth grade teacher, local church leader and mother of three who has worked various jobs to make ends meet, from sorting seed corn to working in a local deli.
Walz plans to travel the state in early December and hold listening sessions with taxpayers. She said she would incorporate those ideas into her campaign for governor, a decision she expects to finalize in early 2026. Non-incumbents must file by March 2.
“If we’re finding that we’re on the same page, that people, like me, are having the same struggles that I am with health care costs, with housing costs, transportation, day care cost, then I’m all in on running for governor,” Walz said.
Walz in 2018 ran as the Democratic lieutenant governor candidate for then-State Sen. Bob Krist, who sought to unseat then-Gov. Pete Ricketts.
Ricketts received 59% support. Should she run, she would be seeking to be the state’s first Democratic governor since former Gov. Ben Nelson was term-limited in 1999.
Campaign priorities
Walz served two terms as a Democratic state senator in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature, a legislative moderate representing Republican-leaning Dodge County and Valley.
The former teacher served all eight years on the Education Committee, which she chaired in 2021 and 2022 with the support of Republicans and Democrats.
She lost reelection as chair in 2023 and 2024, when the body shifted in a more conservative direction.
This January, a term-limited Walz returned to being a realtor in Fremont full time.
Among Walz’s early list of priorities is affordability of health care, child care and housing; an eye toward education and a “laser focus” on economic development.
Walz said she would announce a property tax plan “soon” but that all Nebraskans need to work together. She said there have been opportunities to do so, such as a 2022 plan she worked on with then-State Sen. Brett Lindstrom of Omaha, a Republican running for Congress in the Omaha area.
Those plans were built on statewide feedback, but she said the then-Ricketts-led executive branch ran “interference,” in part, she argued, because of her political party.
“That’s a sad situation for 1.9 million people in Nebraska,” Walz said. “That’s not the way things should work.”
In 2024, Walz joined a small, bipartisan group of lawmakers developing a long-term school funding and property tax relief plan that phased in over a decade rather than moving as quickly as Gov. Jim Pillen’s competing proposal.
Walz said that those who know her know that party labels don’t matter to her, but the current system “forces” people to choose a letter behind their name. To her, she said, “Democrat” represents the values of her father: faith, hard work and family love. He provided for those around him, she said.
As governor, Walz said she would not care who brought property tax relief proposals so long as they’re responsible, intentional and don’t hurt people. She said property tax relief requires economic development through new and expanded businesses.
Walz helped pass a bill in 2022 to more quickly build and improve the state’s expressway system at less cost. She said she plans to bring the business community together for a long-term strategic plan.
“Let’s just bring something, and let’s get it done,” Walz said.
A swing vote
When she came to the Legislature in 2017, having unseated a Republican incumbent in a red district, she said she had to listen to all sides. Walz said she “absolutely” considers herself a moderate.
“They don’t come in with preconceived ideas, and they don’t come in with somebody telling them how they have to vote and having to bow down to that,” Walz said. “A moderate can think for themselves, and that’s exactly what I do.”
In her first year, Walz passed a bill to prohibit cities and counties from canceling health insurance coverage for first responders injured while on duty for at least one year after the injury, giving families time to plan ahead. It earned Walz an award as legislator of the year from the Fraternal Order of Police.
In 2020, Walz was one of just four registered Democrats at the time to pass a bill banning a second-trimester abortion method known medically as dilation and evacuation. In 2023, she was eyed as a swing vote on a bill seeking to ban abortions after six weeks post-fertilization. The bill ultimately passed to ban most abortions after 12 weeks gestational age after one Republican balked at the stricter language.
Walz had tried to find middle ground when the abortion fight was attached to another contentious social issue that year: gender care for youths with gender dysphoria. She introduced a compromise amendment she had crafted with Republican input, focused on an abortion exception for fatal fetal anomalies and specifying gender care regulations. Her changes weren’t considered, and she voted against the final bill.
Education, affordability and economics
On education, Walz said it’s important for high schools to offer more students individualized opportunities to succeed, such as career and technical education, for which she said Fremont has been a model. She also wants the state to provide more resources to students at a “very early age.”
The former teacher said she remembers young students who came to school abused or hungry. Many struggled to learn.
Walz in 2024 appropriated $10 million for school security infrastructure improvement grants in the wake of school shootings nationally.
On affordability, Walz said the state must focus on structural costs it can control, such as via housing grants or expanded down payment assistance for young families. She is also interested in child care provider incentives.
While there is a “moral obligation” to help those in need, Walz said the government can’t solve everyone’s problems, and she said it should work with businesses and workers to create opportunities so Nebraskans can improve their own lives.
Walz said she would work with the federal government and uphold the “will of the people” as indicated in recent ballot measures.
The 2024 statewide vote on school choice and state-funded school vouchers for private schools also solidified Walz’s opposition to the state subsidizing private school costs of attendance. She was “present, not voting” — which she described as a “soft no” — on the passage of a tax-credit based model in 2023 and a replacement direct scholarship model in 2024.
Walz said she and her husband, Chris, worked five to six jobs to put their three children through private school, because the couple wanted the faith-based education. However, Walz said they didn’t ask anyone to pay for them. She said she worries state funding could lead to more state involvement in private education and jeopardize the faith-based focus the Walz family wanted.
She said she doesn’t want to take away money that could go to public education and said vouchers often go to wealthy families already sending kids to private school.
Family and job experience
Walz grew up on a small hog farm north of Fremont in Fontanelle, Nebraska. She and her brother ran the farm while her father, a construction worker and union member, worked. Walz said it was “one of the best experiences,” that it taught her hard work, loving God’s creation and the importance of family.
After high school, while friends were packing bags to go to college, Walz said she moved in with and advocated for three ladies living with developmental disabilities. On bad days, the women gave Walz the hugs and support she needed.
“It taught me how to advocate for people,” Walz said. “It taught me that everybody has a gift.”
After meeting her husband, Walz said the couple had two boys and she went to college for teaching. She opened a day care to keep her kids at home. She later worked various jobs to make ends meet, from 3M in the evening to sorting corn seed as well as the Hinky Dinky deli.
She went back to helping families with developmental disabilities before becoming a fourth and fifth grade teacher at Northside Elementary School in Fremont. After having a third child, a girl, she earned a real estate license.
‘Love your neighbor’
Walz said her faith remains the “center” of all of her decisions. She holds a leadership role in the Nebraska Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and has been a Bible school teacher and Sunday school teacher.
She said her parents and grandparents taught her to love God and her neighbor. She said her parents helped people, including with food and basic needs, and took in her grandparents when her grandpa had cancer.
“When Jesus said ‘love your neighbor,’ there was a period at the end of that sentence,” Walz said.
She says love is unconditional whether Nebraskans look the same, have the same faith or share political views.
“I’ll do everything I can to make sure that we are united and we all have common goals, because there are really more things that unite us than things that divide us,” Walz said.
‘Going to work furiously’
Should Walz decide to run for governor, she said she would run in the Democratic primary, set for May 12. She is only known Democrat considering a bid. The Democratic primary winner would advance to the Nov. 3 general election, along with the GOP winner.
Pillen has announced his reelection campaign. Also running is Jacy Todd of York, a combat medic veteran, small business owner and notary for recent medical cannabis petitions. Charles Herbster, an agribusinessman 2022 Pillen opponent, is flirting with a 2026 rematch.
Pillen’s campaign had no immediate comment on Walz’s announcement.
Walz said her focus is common good and positive impact with ideas rooted in listening to Nebraskans, not partisan fights.
“We’re not going to be pointing fingers,” Walz said. “We’re going to move ahead, and we’re going to work furiously and focus on what needs to be done to better the lives of the people who live here.”
