Nurses on the 2026 Ballot: Who Won, Who Lost, and Which Races Are Still Uncalled

Part of Nurses on the Ballot, Nurse.org’s research series on the nurses and nursing issues of the 2026 midterm elections. This closing piece covers how the nurses we tracked fared on November 3. Many races were still being counted when we published, and we will update this page as they are called. Results are as of 9:57 a.m. ET on November 4, with later calls noted in About This Data.

Democrats won control of the House and the Senate, according to the Associated Press, and won at least five governorships held by Republicans, including in Georgia, Ohio, and Texas. In the Voter Poll by SSRS, conducted for ABC News, AP, and other networks, 89% of voters said the cost of living was a crucial or major factor in their vote, and 85% said they were very or somewhat concerned about the cost of health care. Asked about their House vote, 43% said one reason was to express opposition to President Donald Trump, 16% said one reason was to express support, and 40% said he was not a factor.

The nurses on this year’s ballots ran in both parties, and their results were mixed. Nurses from both parties won state legislative seats, and the number of members of Congress with nursing backgrounds stays at four, but who those members are, and their parties, changed.

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Two nurse incumbents won and two lost. In addition, two nurse challengers won seats held by Republicans, and the other 12 nurse challengers lost.

Most of these races went the way the Cook Political Report rated them in our race update. All 17 races have now been called, and 15 went to the party Cook favored. The two exceptions were Berman’s and Knickerbocker’s wins, both in races rated Lean R. Lee’s race in Arizona’s 5th, rated Solid R, was far closer than that rating suggested.

Results are AP race calls, except AZ-05, which was called by Decision Desk HQ; AP had not called it as of 10:44 a.m. ET on November 6.

The partisan balance among nurses in Congress flips. The current four, Underwood, Biggs, Kiggans, and Miller-Meeks, are one Democrat and three Republicans; the next four, Underwood, Biggs, Berman, and Knickerbocker, are three Democrats and one Republican. (Miller-Meeks, who served as an Army nurse before becoming a physician, is included in our roster for her nursing background.) The change also affects at least one nursing bill: the Educating Future Nurses Act, which Underwood introduced in September to fund clinical training for advanced practice nursing students through Medicare, will lose its only Republican original cosponsor when Kiggans leaves the House in January.

Both nurses who ran for the Senate were on the same ballot in Oklahoma and lost: N’Kiyla Thomas (D) and Ron Meinhardt (I). We have found no record of a nurse ever serving in the U.S. Senate.

The Congressional Nursing Caucus will look different, too. Of its 53 House members, 36 won reelection: 29 Democrats and 7 Republicans. All three members who lost are Republicans, including Rep. Bryan Steil, who lost to Berman. Ten did not run for reelection, among them Rep. Chris Pappas, who won a Senate seat in New Hampshire. Four races have not been called.

What the Winners’ Campaigns Said About Nursing

• Berman, an emergency room nurse, had the fullest campaign-website platform of the federal nurse candidates in our roster, with positions on four of the seven issues we tracked. It commits to “Protect nurses and health care workers from violence on the job, ensure funding for nursing education to train and keep nurses in our local communities and put bedside nurses, not hospital executives, in charge of setting staffing standards on their own units.”
• Knickerbocker told Nurse.org that nurses are “underutilized, underpaid, overworked, and not recognized for their significant role,” and said she hopes to cosponsor bills addressing health care workers’ needs in the next Congress.

Of the 140 nurses in our state legislative roster, at least 65 won, including 17 who ran unopposed, and 42 lost. Another 33 races have not been called.

By party, at least 34 Democratic-aligned candidates won and 25 lost; at least 31 Republicans won and 16 lost. The other loss was a nonpartisan candidate for Nebraska’s officially nonpartisan legislature. (As in our roster, Democratic-aligned includes Democrats, Democratic-Farmer-Labor, and Democratic/Working Families candidates.)

Most of the winners were already legislators. Of the 73 nurses who currently hold a state legislative seat, 53 won and 6 lost, with 14 races not yet called. Among the incumbents who won: Erin Murphy, a nurse and Minnesota’s Senate Majority Leader. All six who lost are Republican incumbents who lost to Democrats. So far, at least 12 nurses who are not current legislators have won seats.

Of the 10 health-related ballot measures we tracked, Virginia voters approved Question 1, the only one in our review that explicitly names nurses, which protects doctors, nurses, and patients from state penalties for reproductive care decisions. Nevada voters gave final approval to a constitutional abortion right, Missouri voters kept the one they passed in 2024, and Idaho voters rejected a statutory abortion right. South Dakota voters rejected making Medicaid expansion conditional on federal funding, and California voters rejected Proposition 44, which would have required community health clinics to spend 90% of revenue on program services. Rhode Island voters approved a $275 million higher education bond that includes a University of Rhode Island health building that would house nursing education. Results were not yet final for Colorado’s Proposition 135 and California’s Propositions 38 and 40.

What the Winners’ Platforms Said About Nursing

• Staffing: Maria Collett (D-Pa.), whose Patient Safety Act would set “safe, unit-specific staffing minimums in Pennsylvania hospitals,” won reelection, as did Kyle Mullica (D-Colo.) and Liz Boldon (D-Minn.), who ran on safe staffing.
• Workforce: Republicans Jenifer Jones (R-N.M.), who backs a rural provider tax credit “to recruit and keep medical professionals in the communities that need them most,” and Cindy Ledbetter (R-Ind.), who called for more psychiatric nurse practitioners, both won.
• Scope of practice: Gale Adcock (D-N.C.), a nurse practitioner who wants “restrictive and outdated state laws” on licensed health professionals repealed, and Rachel Baker (D-Ohio), who introduced legislation on certified registered nurse anesthetists, both won.

Results in the 20 Close Senate and Governor Races

Governors and senators shape the laws nurses work under, from hospital staffing and scope of practice to Medicaid and nursing workforce funding. Before the election, we reviewed where candidates stood on nursing in the 20 Senate and governor races the Cook Political Report rated Toss Up or Lean.

Democrats won 16 of the 17 races that have been called, and Republicans won one, in Florida. Three races have not been called: Alaska’s Senate and governor races, which use ranked-choice voting, and the Kansas governor’s race, where fewer than 6,000 votes separate the candidates.

The results continued the trend our review tracked: before the election, 13 of the 20 races had moved toward Democrats in Cook’s ratings since early 2025. Democrats won all 10 Toss Up races that have been called. Of the 7 Lean races that have been called, 6 went to the party Cook favored; the exception was the Texas governor’s race, rated Lean R, which Gina Hinojosa won. Democrats also won five governorships held by Republicans: Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, and Texas.

In Florida, Republicans won both statewide races at the top of the ballot, by narrower margins than four years ago. Byron Donalds won the governor’s race by about 1 point, after Ron DeSantis won it by 19 in 2022, and Sen. Ashley Moody won her special election by about 3 points, in a seat Marco Rubio won by 16.

What the Winners Have Said and Done on Nursing

• Nevada: Aaron Ford joined 17 other attorneys general in opposing the repeal of federal nursing home staffing standards. Gov. Joe Lombardo, whom he defeated, vetoed a hospital nurse-to-patient ratio bill in 2025.
• Georgia: Keisha Lance Bottoms’s plan pledges to “Support nurses with safer staffing and stronger workplace protections so patients get better care and nurses can stay in the profession.”
• Florida: As a state legislator, Byron Donalds voted for a 2020 law letting qualifying advanced practice registered nurses practice independently in primary care.
• Senate: Sherrod Brown sponsored the 2023 federal bill to set hospital RN-to-patient ratios. Troy Jackson cosponsored a Maine nurse staffing bill. Abdul El-Sayed said he would work with “anyone and everyone who’s willing to establish safe staffing ratios.”
• Beyond the 20 races: Two other statewide winners from our issues review made nursing commitments: Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), an original cosponsor of the federal nurse staffing standards bill, and New Mexico Governor-elect Deb Haaland (D), who pledged to expand nursing program slots.

For each candidate’s full record, see Where Candidates Stand in 20 Competitive 2026 Races.

These results are not a verdict on nurses as candidates. Nurses ran as Republicans, Democrats, and independents. Nurse incumbents from both parties won reelection, and so far, all of the nurse incumbents who lost were Republicans. Nurses from both parties have won state legislative seats in nearly equal numbers.

What the election does settle is who will be in a position to act on the issues nurses deal with at work. Voters said costs, including health care costs, weighed on their choices. In our Nurse Voter Survey, safe staffing was the issue respondents most wanted lawmakers to work on, picked by 66.4% of the 830 licensed nurses who took part. Across this series, we collected the specific nursing commitments candidates put in writing, on staffing, workplace violence, education funding, pay, and scope of practice. For the winners, those commitments are now a public record to measure their time in office against.

The new Congress is sworn in on January 3, 2027, and most new governors and legislators take office in January. Bills that did not pass in this Congress, including the Educating Future Nurses Act, would have to be reintroduced in the next one.

We will keep updating this page as the remaining races are called. If you know of a nurse whose result we missed, tell us, and we will verify it and add it.

More From Nurses on the Ballot

🤔 Which result matters most for nurses in your state? Tell us in the comments below.

Scope. The 18 verified nurses on congressional ballots, the 140 verified nurses on state legislative ballots, the 20 Senate and governor races rated Toss Up or Lean by the Cook Political Report in our battleground review, other statewide candidates named in our nursing issues review, the 10 measures in our ballot measures review, and the 53 House members of the Congressional Nursing Caucus.

Results. A race is counted as won or lost only when the Associated Press, Decision Desk HQ, or a state election office has called or certified it. Federal and statewide results were checked against both AP and Decision Desk HQ. State legislative and ballot measure results are AP race calls, except Rhode Island Question 1 and California Proposition 44, which AP’s results pages do not include and Decision Desk HQ called. California Proposition 38 is also not on AP’s results pages and had not been called. Races without a call are listed as not yet called, whatever the current margin. Two results rest on Decision Desk HQ calls that AP had not made: Elizabeth Lee’s loss in Arizona’s 5th District, and Rep. Rob Wittman’s loss in Virginia’s 1st District, which is counted in the Congressional Nursing Caucus totals. Guam’s delegate race is not covered by AP; its status is from the Guam Election Commission. Results are unofficial until certified. Results were checked at 9:57 a.m. ET on November 4, 2026.

Special cases. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting; when no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, a race is not decided until the ranked-choice tabulation. In multi-member state legislative districts, a nurse is counted as a winner only when AP called them among the winners.

Florida comparison. 2022 results are certified returns from the Florida Division of Elections.

Voter survey. The Voter Poll by SSRS, conducted for ABC News, AP, and other networks, from ABC News’s published national results as of 7:30 a.m. ET on November 4. The national margin of error is about plus or minus 0.6 points (methodology).

Updates. We will update this page as remaining races are called. Update (November 5, 2026): AP called Ohio’s 10th District for Kristina Knickerbocker, matching the Decision Desk HQ call this page originally reported. Update (November 6, 2026): Decision Desk HQ called Arizona’s 5th District for Mark Lamb (R) over Elizabeth Lee (D) on November 5. AP had not called the race.

Nurse.org Analysis