LINCOLN- Running for Legislature got a lot more expensive in Nebraska last year. Candidates in the 2020 general election shattered records set just two years earlier, with average spending 30% higher than in 2018 and the top-spending campaign nearing the half-million-dollar mark.

But neither lawmakers nor campaign observers expect the trend to slow down anytime soon.

"I don’t think the spending record that was set in my race will stand for very long," said State Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln, who poured an eye-popping $492,353 into his successful bid for elected office last year.

Bostar, a Democrat, the top spender in the 2020 election, won the seat being vacated by Sen. Kate Bolz.

Said Paul Landow, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha: "Politicians are in an arms race, and the currency they use is dollars rather than nuclear megatons. In the end, I think the real losers are the American public."

A World-Herald analysis of campaign finance reports filed with the Nebraska Accountability and

Disclosure Commission found that general election candidates spent an average of $144,658 on their campaigns last year, the most ever in Nebraska. The analysis combined the spending in the year before the election through the end of the election year.

The 2020 figure compares with the $111,471 average the previous election, which was the previous record.

The 2018 figure was a 28% increase from 2016, which, in turn, was up 3% from the 2014 election.

Last year, 13 candidates topped the $200,000 mark, including four who exceeded $300,000 and Bostar, who crossed the $400,000 mark.

For the full article click HERE