LINCOLN- District 26, previously occupied by Senator Matt Hansen will be filled by either Russ Barger or George Dungan. Both candidates are very different, but each identified public safety as a top issue.

Barger, a 50-year-old Republican attorney and entrepreneur, and Dungan, a 34-year-old Democrat and former public defender — have fundamentally very different views.

For Dungan, who finished 292 votes behind Barger in second place in May’s four-way primary race, the issue is nuanced and intertwined with the availability of accessible health care, including mental health care and substance-use programs.

“We need safe neighborhoods,” said Dungan, who worked in the Lancaster County Public Defender’s Office for eight years after earning an undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas and a law degree from American University.

For Barger, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate who has worked in Nebraska’s Attorney General’s Office and for the state’s Department of Labor, the issue seems more black-and-white.

“Our local law enforcement has been undermanned and underfunded for years, and it’s now showing with our record crime numbers in 2022,” he said in a written response to questions after declining an in-person or phone interview, citing time constraints.

Nowhere is their differences more apparent than in their stances on abortion. “There could not be a clearer contrast between Russ Barger and I when it comes to the issue of whether or not somebody has access to reproductive health care,” said Dungan.

Barger believes abortion should only be legal in cases when the mother’s life is threatened. He does not support exceptions for rape, incest or “fetal anomalies.”

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