Two Nurses Are Headed to Congress. Meet Mitchell Berman and Kristina Knickerbocker

Part of Nurses on the Ballot, Nurse.org’s research series on the nurses and nursing issues of the 2026 midterm elections. For every nurse on this year’s federal and state ballots, see our election results.

Two nurses are headed to Congress for the first time. Mitchell Berman, an emergency room nurse from southeast Wisconsin, defeated four-term Rep. Bryan Steil (R). Kristina Knickerbocker, a nurse practitioner and Air Force veteran from the Dayton area, defeated 12-term Rep. Mike Turner (R).

They will join two nurses who won reelection, Reps. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) and Sheri Biggs (R-S.C.), when the new Congress is sworn in on January 3, 2027. Two other nurses in Congress, Reps. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), lost. Another nurse candidate, Elizabeth Lee (D), lost a close race in Arizona’s 5th District. 

Here is who Berman and Knickerbocker are, what they told voters and Nurse.org about nursing, and where they fit in the short history of nurses in Congress.

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Berman, 40, grew up in Peshtigo, in northeast Wisconsin, and lives in Raymond, in Racine County, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. He spent 11 years as a nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospitals in Milwaukee and North Chicago, and resigned from the VA to run because federal employees cannot run for partisan office. During the campaign, he was working at an Ascension hospital. He holds an active Wisconsin RN license.

His platform was the most detailed on nursing of any federal nurse candidate’s campaign website in our roster, with positions on four of the seven nursing issues we tracked: staffing, workplace violence, retention, and education funding. 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.”

The Associated Press called the race for Berman at 11:48 p.m. Central time on Election Night. He won about 52% of the vote to Steil’s 48%, becoming the first Democrat to win the seat in more than three decades, according to the Wisconsin Examiner. The district was once held by former House Speaker Paul Ryan.

“As an ER nurse, I’ve seen patients rationing their medication because they didn’t know they’d be able to afford their next refill. I’ve seen working families, including my own, do everything right and still get squeezed to the ground,” Berman said in his victory speech. “Trust me, this wasn’t on my bingo card,” he told supporters.

He won while being heavily outspent. Through September 30, Berman reported $1.61 million in total receipts to Steil’s $6.25 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings, as reported in our race update. Cook moved the race from Likely R to Lean R in late September.

Knickerbocker is a family nurse practitioner who holds active Ohio RN and certified nurse practitioner licenses. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Azusa Pacific University in 2014 and a master’s in nursing, as a family nurse practitioner, from Ohio State in 2022, according to her campaign. Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center lists her among the advanced practice providers in its neuro-oncology division. Her campaign says she served as an Air Force officer for a decade, including as a nurse in the 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and that her service brought her to the Dayton area. She lives in Yellow Springs, the Yellow Springs News reported.

She has said she began considering a run after seeing patients struggle with the cost of care. “It’s just not OK that people have to suffer and choose between medicine and groceries,” she told the paper in April. She has also tied her focus on maternal health to her own near-death in childbirth, the Yellow Springs News reported.

In a statement to Nurse.org in September, she pointed to how nursing work is paid for, not just how nurses are paid:

“Nursing is instrumental to our health system but nurses are underutilized, underpaid, overworked, and not recognized for their significant role in the health system. Billing codes are antiquated and still do not account for nurses’ diverse workload and decision-making. Nurses’ work is often lumped into ‘facility fees’ by insurers. Our health system needs a complete overhaul that won’t happen overnight. There are several bills that I hope to cosponsor in the 120th Congress that address healthcare workers’ needs.”

AP called the race on Thursday afternoon, nearly two days after polls closed. Knickerbocker won 49.3% of the vote to Turner’s 47.7%, with a Libertarian taking 2.9%. “I never imagined this is where life would lead me, but my kids, my military service and my patients taught me how resilience often results when you are tasked with the unimaginable,” she said in a statement reported by WYSO. “While many thought this would be impossible, the work is just beginning.”

Turner, who had represented the Dayton area since 2003, said in a statement, “I wish Kristina Knickerbocker every success and encourage everyone to come together in support of the work ahead for our community.”

Through September 30, Knickerbocker reported $883,182 in total receipts to Turner’s $1.24 million, according to FEC filings. Cook moved the race from Likely R to Lean R in mid-October.

The history of nurses in Congress involves a small group. Our review of House records found 11 members whose official biographies show a nursing credential or degree, all in the House, five Democrats and six Republicans, starting with Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas in 1993. All 11 were women, which makes Berman the first man among them, based on that review.

Knickerbocker would be the third nurse practitioner, after Kiggans and Biggs. Two nurses winning first terms in the same election has happened before: Cori Bush and Miller-Meeks were both elected in 2020, and three nurses won in 2010.

They arrive as one nursing bill loses its only Republican cosponsor. The Educating Future Nurses Act, which Underwood introduced in September to fund clinical training for advanced practice nursing students through Medicare, lists Kiggans as an original cosponsor, and she leaves the House in January. Bills that do not pass by the end of this Congress must be reintroduced in the next one.

Berman also replaces a member of the Congressional Nursing Caucus: Steil was one of its 53 House members as of our September review. Two of the four nurses now in Congress, Underwood and Kiggans, are among the caucus’s vice co-chairs. Caucus membership starts over with each new Congress, so Berman and Knickerbocker could join in January.

Both new members ran on health care costs, and both described those costs through their patients. Berman’s platform took a position on staffing, the issue respondents to our Nurse Voter Survey most wanted lawmakers to work on, picked by 66.4% of the 830 licensed nurses who took part. Knickerbocker raised an issue that gets less attention outside the profession: that insurers’ billing often folds nursing work into facility fees rather than counting it on its own. Nurse.org has covered why nursing still has no billing codes of its own.

The number of nurses in Congress will hold at four when the new Congress convenes on January 3, 2027. Their party balance will not: today’s three Republicans and one Democrat become three Democrats and one Republican.

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About This Data

Licenses. Nursing licenses were verified through Nursys, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s license verification system: Berman’s Wisconsin RN license, and Knickerbocker’s Ohio RN and certified nurse practitioner (family) licenses. All were active and unencumbered.

Results. Both races, and Elizabeth Lee’s race in Arizona’s 5th District, were called by the Associated Press.

Background. Berman’s background is from Wisconsin Public Radio’s reporting. Knickerbocker’s clinical role is from Ohio State’s provider directory; her degrees were provided by her campaign, and her Air Force service is as described by her campaign. Her quoted statement was provided to Nurse.org by her campaign on September 24, 2026.

Campaign platforms and fundraising. Platform language is from Berman’s campaign website, as reviewed for our congressional roster. Fundraising totals are Federal Election Commission filings through September 30, 2026. Ratings are from the Cook Political Report.

Nurses in Congress. The count of 11 members is from our review of official House biographies and House office pages. Biographies do not always list earlier careers, so a member with a nursing credential not stated in an official biography may not be included.

Nurse.org Analysis