Watch live: Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon to announce plans for 2026 election

Thanks for, uh, thanks for being here today. I was supposed to fly out right after this and go direct to, uh, DC to vote on some, some legislation that’s being talked about and but it looks like I don’t have to fly out until tomorrow, but we wanted to play it safe, uh, do it here. But I can’t think of *** better place than Uley Airfield anyway because we’ve helped to invest $78 million so this airport is gonna be the pride and joy of Omaha with uh double the terminals direct flights to Caribbean and and Mexico and so this is part of the legacy I think our team, not me, but our team, uh, will have on this. And so, so thanks for being here and. You know, in Ecclesiastes, it says in chapter 3 that there’s *** time for everything, it’s *** time for every season. Of activity under the sun and 10 years ago in 3 months. I Angie and I and our family made announcement we’re going to be *** candidate for Congress. We had an uphill battle on that, but we ended up being the only Republican challenger to win in 2016 in the House or the Senate. And it never got easier, right? 2018, we lost 41 seats in the house and we were able to pull out *** victory at 2 points, outperforming by eight points our party. And you could say the same thing for 2020, 2022, and even in 2024 we had everybody that does projections, 88 of us, so we were going to lose. We had like 8 polls and we were down and we ended up winning by 2 points when the top of the ticket of Vice President Harris won by 5. And what some of the funniest quotes that we got out of this was. 11 Democrat called me *** white, *** white elephant. I had another, uh, one, another commentator says Don Bacon was grown in *** laboratory tailor made for this district and then the DCCC was asked why did you lose? I go, we have no idea why. That was my favorite quote. But today I am announcing I’m not running for re-election. So, so I feel emotional. It’s been *** great 10 years. So I wasn’t supposed to get emotional. That’s not 11 of the things that are thinking about. We’ve worked 4 days out of 7 in Washington DC. 1214 hours *** day. It’s time to come home. So I look forward to working in the area. And walking in the door saying hi to Angie every night. Now this may be harder on her than me. But I look forward to coming home every night and I also look forward to seeing, uh, we have 3 adult children here who are married, uh, and living in the area. We also have 8 grandchildren total within 10 minutes of our house and, uh, what is it? Where’s Elliott at? You want to step up your This guy the other day goes, Grandpa, when are you gonna retire? I want to see you more. So anyway, that’s gonna be fun to do. Also I wanted to make, just gotta be honest. I think that we could win this district. I’m in *** great position to win again politically. We, we’re doing *** great job with swing and and. Voters But it takes 1214 hours *** day. And I want to devote more of that time to the family and to win this district. You gotta be all in and you can’t leave anything on the table and we’ve done it 5 times. And so I think it’s time for *** new Republican uh. To be our nominee that can do 1214 hour *** day and hold the seat. I would also just want to Add that I don’t want, I’m not gonna retire, retire. I am going to be active in this community. I love Omaha. I’ve lived at 16 places in the Air Force. This is our home. Best place to live in America, that you didn’t need to ask Forbes. You just asked me. I know firsthand. Right? So we want to be involved and make *** difference. Also on the national level, I, I have *** voice on national security and I want to be *** voice for traditional Republican. Views that stood for Ronald Reagan. My first campaign that I got involved in, I was 13 years old in 1976 campaign for Ronald Reagan. And I haven’t changed. I believe in the views that he, that he espouses, so I wanna be *** voice there as well. I wanna take *** moment to just go through some successes. We’ve accomplished or got past 38 bills in the last 9 years. Many people go through Congress for 10 or 16 years, maybe get one bill passed. We got 38 bills signed into law and the 118th Congress, we were the number one of 435 Congress people in getting legislation passed, and uh I’m proud of our team. I’m part of that team, but it takes the team to make that happen. Uh, in the 117th Congress, we’re number 2 of 435 for legislation passed. We’ve been rated the most effective repub uh congressman. Twice one time #2, 1 time #1, and twice we were rated the most bipartisan member of Congress. We’ve worked hard to do right and our team has done *** great job in doing that. What have we been able to do for the district? We got. $1.4 billion for Offit to rebuild after the flood. $160 million for *** new runway at Offutt. By the way, we got *** new runway at Wahoo Airport as well. Of course, we’re doing work here at this at here 7 $78 million right here at Uly. Uh, we also rebuilt Ashland at the tune of just under $50 million. It’s so important to our Nebraska National Guard. When I came in, I was an electronic warfare officer in the Air Force. I’ve been able to with our team, this is team team ones to get the electronic warfare program back on track for the DOD. We have passed all the major legislation on electronic warfare out of our office, and for those who are familiar with electronic warfare, you don’t win unless you control the electronic magnetic spectrum. And uh that’s so it’s been *** cha something I’ve been able to champion uh in the house. I’ve been *** champion of nuclear command and control and and remodernizing. The triad that is so important for the deterrence and the peace of our country. I was the chairman of the Quality of Life Committee, uh, in the in the Congress where we passed 29 measures to improve the military’s quality of life to the tune of about $5 billion. We got pay raises for junior enlisted, new money for dormitories, barracks, housing, better health care, mental health, you name it, we try to make some improvements for those who serve. Uh, we want people that wanna volunteer and want to remain in the military, but you gotta take care of them when they’re in. Was able to pass the foot and mouth disease vaccine Bank. That was our measure out of our office, something that’s important uh for our farmers out there. This doesn’t have my name on it, but we got the anti-lynching bill passed. It was our legislation. We’ve been trying for 100 years to get this bill passed. I was able to get legislation submitted. I tried to get somebody else to champion it. I couldn’t get anybody else to champion it, so I put it in. I got *** call from the Democratic majority. I was in the minority at that point. It says we now like your bill. We didn’t like it before. I’m paraphrasing, but we’re gonna change the title because you, we can’t give you credit, but it was passed verbatim and it is *** lot of day the bill that I submitted under somebody else’s name, but it’s verbatim what I submitted. I also was able to get past the Never Again Education Act. Again, not my name, but this bill has been stagnant for over 10 years, and I added the rep I put *** Republican name on it and pushed it to help out *** colleague of mine in New York and we got her done and our schools today don’t have access to the the. The Holocaust Museums access on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust and all of our schools have free access to that today if they want to use it because uh uh because that legislation we passed the Charles Jackson. Uh, we got the, got the, uh, post office named after Charles Jackson. French. Sorry, I had to make sure I got the last name right. Here’s *** guy that was looked over, no medals. We got him *** medal obviously after he after he died, and we got *** mailbox named after him. He’s become *** local hero, but he was overlooked for *** long time. We worked with Brad Ashford to get the VA ambulatory clinic done. He got it started. We helped finish it. I give him, he did the heavy lifting and I give him credit, but it took the both of us to get that done, and I’m proud of it. It’s the most beautiful clinic in the United States when it comes to the VA. We got the chip in bill passed reauthorized something that he started and we’ve been able to reauthorize it. By the way, we’re gonna try to get *** new VA hospital here and that’s gonna help contribute $700 million to whatever the federals put in for *** new VA hospitals. So I’m excited about the opportunity here. We passed the initial legislation on Gold Star families taking care of spouses who lost *** loved one, their husband or wife in Iraq or Afghanistan. And we brought in *** lot of different federal grants to North Omaha, South Omaha. We’ve been able to extend or rebuild natural gas pipelines that are 100 years old in Omaha and Oahu, *** sewer and water infrastructure and Sarin. We can go on and on. We’ve worked our hard. We brought in $5 billion of infrastructure in recent years to the local area. Just *** couple more things that aren’t legislation but I’m proud of our office stood up, we stood up the Main Street Republicans. It’s *** group of governors who want Republicans who want to govern who are pragmatic and want to work across the aisle to get things done. Today it’s the 2nd largest caucus, uh, in, in, in the Congress. So, uh, that’s *** little bit of *** legacy that we leave on. I founded the 4 Country caucus, all veterans, half Republican, half Democrat, that wanna work together and get things done. I’m the Baltic security chair. I love Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia. They’re on the front lines with Russia. They need us there for deterrence. I’m the chair of the foster care caucus. My wife and I have been involved with foster care. 600,000 kids are in foster care. We wanna make sure they have good homes and that when they transition that they have every reason for success. I’m on the Air Force Academy board. We got great people going to our academies. I’m on the Holocaust Museum board, which I love. I love that mission. Never forget, never again. It’s *** great mission. So this is just some of the things that we’ve worked and these are team ones. That’s Bridger, by the way. These are team wins that I share with, with all the folks in our office, but also our constituents who’ve given us *** lot of these ideas. What do I want to get done? We got another year and *** half. First of all, nuclear command and control survivability is *** real problem, and I think I’m one of the first people identified as *** problem. China and Russia can hit us in 15 minutes. We got to be able to respond. And I’m going to push the military to have *** better survivable framework. And I think we’re starting to get traction. I finally got 4 star generals to acknowledge that we’re not postured right. For 2 adversaries you can hit us in 15 minutes right here at Stratcom. We gotta do better. And the remainder thing I want to focus on is get us pointed the right way with the right agreements and the initial funding for *** new VA hospital with the chip in bill we could find between our construction, philanthropic community, county and local support, city support that we could contribute $700 million to this effort and have *** billion dollars plus VA hospital and our VA, our vets deserve it. This, that’s facility was built in the early 50s. It leaks. It needs to be modernized. And that’s what I, what we aim to do. Let me close to some thank yous. I wanna thank God first. I, I feel very blessed. I feel very lucky. First of all, Angie and I come from broken families. I feel blessed to be married 41 years to have 4 great kids, great daughters and son-in-laws. We got also got great sister-in-law that I married into here and her husband and Mike, and they moved here, by the way, so 2 more voters. I think they vote the right way. But I thank her family. Uh, do you do, we, uh, well, first of all, I thank God, but also forgive for being, for giving us *** great family. But God, God’s opened up these doors, and I pray every day for wisdom and His blessing. I do thank family. Angie, uh, uh, she, I met her at 18 years old and I was, uh, not that I was not *** straight *** student. I had to attend *** couple of schools before I found one that would that liked me. I try to say it nicely. But she, uh, but we, we’ve been together 43 years now, uh, dating and being married 41, and I, I love our kids and grand and our grandkids and, and our kids all married well, so they’ve they’ve they’ve raised the bacon. Pool, the, the, the best bacons are the ones who marry into our family. I want to thank the friends who are here today. I have *** lot of folks who’ve been here from the beginning. Norm Brfo helped chair our campaign in 2016, right? uh, county chair, and we have, I look around, we got people who are part of our team from the get-go. I’m gonna come back to the offices. You don’t, you don’t win these races without folks you can lean on like Norm. Also, uh, is Bruce Friedlander here? Bruce, another family guy. I’m, I, I married into his family, I think. And, and Norm’s family, but you find, you find that. When you’re in the trenches, it’s great to have *** *** network not only support politically but just be like family. I wanna take *** moment to spend this little time by our official team and our and our political team. We’ve had people on our political team from day one like Danielle right here. I didn’t know who she was the first day she worked in, but somebody hired her. We got James. She, he’s been here from day one. We, we have folk and. On the political side, Derek, he, I think he was 17 years old. I don’t know, he started out out and he’s been with, with us or associated with us ever since. We got it, so our official political team’s been great. You know, you don’t do this stuff on your own. I thank you. You guys have been great. and those who’ve served and gone on to do other things, maybe making more money, good on you. Finally, let me close on this. I want to thank our constituents. We, we’ve been blessed for 5 elections to help represent. I appreciate the trust that was given us by the constituents of this district. I’m going nowhere. I look forward to being part of this community and, um, and expanding our friendships and but I am grateful to those who voted for me who didn’t vote for me. I appreciate the opportunity to serve.