A name that stays on the ballot after the campaign ends
A certified candidate can stop campaigning, hand out an endorsement for someone else, and still be printed on the ballot voters mark in November. That is not a loophole or a mistake — it is a deadline that already passed. Here is the actual law, and a certified 2026 Nebraska race that shows exactly what "stepping aside" does and does not do.
This site keeps a roster of every certified candidate on Nebraska's 2026 general election ballot, so no one gets written to while someone else in the same race is ignored. Checking that roster against the Secretary of State's actual certified candidate list on 2026-09-13 turned up a U.S. Senate candidate who had already, weeks earlier, suspended his campaign and endorsed his own opponent — and was still on the certified list anyway. That looked at first like a data error. It is not. It is how the law works, and most voters have never had a reason to learn it.
The person who runs this site has multiple sclerosis, diagnosed in 1998, and is testifying before the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission this week. The candidate whose case sits below ran his whole campaign on legalizing medical cannabis. That overlap is why this page got written this month and not some other month — it is a reason to look, not a finding about anything.
Nebraska's withdrawal rule is Neb. Rev. Stat. § 32-623. A nominee for the general election can decline the nomination in writing, filed with the same officer who received the original candidate filing — but only on or before August 1 before the election. The statute is explicit that "no declination shall be effective" after that date.
August 1 is roughly three months before Election Day. A candidate who has a change of heart, a health event, or a reason to step back in September or October has no statutory path to get their name off the printed ballot — regardless of what they say publicly, and regardless of who they tell people to vote for instead.
Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 32-623, declination of nomination · cross-referenced against the withdrawal form itself, Candidate Filing Withdrawal, Nebraska Secretary of State
One of five certified candidates for U.S. Senate in Nebraska's November 3, 2026 general election is Mike Marvin, the Legal Marijuana NOW nominee. His timeline, dated and sourced, is short:
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2026-03-19 | Registers his FEC principal campaign committee, Marvin for Congress (C00944199). |
| 2026-05-12 | Wins the Legal Marijuana NOW primary, becoming the party's certified Senate nominee. |
| 2026-08-10 | Tells reporters he never planned to leave the race, after reports he might. |
| 2026-08-21 | Suspends active campaigning, citing worsening health, and publicly endorses Dan Osborn: "For me, this has always been about defeating Pete Ricketts, and with my worsening condition, I know I cannot put in the effort this race requires... I am now urging all who supported me to now support Dan Osborn." |
| 2026-09-11 | Appears on the Secretary of State's Final Statewide General Candidate Filing List, certified for the November 3 ballot — because August 1 had already passed. |
He is not off the ballot. He does not want your vote. Both of those things are true on the same certified list, on the same day.
Legal Marijuana NOW's own party chair, Ed Williams, told the Nebraska Examiner he had "never met or talked to" Marvin, and earlier coverage in the same race described allegations that some minor-party candidates that cycle were "plants" meant to split votes. Those are allegations reported by named outlets, not findings this site has verified — printed here as exactly that, per this site's own rule on allegation versus finding, and because a reader deciding what to make of the suspension deserves the full, dated context rather than a tidier version of it.
Sources: Nebraska Examiner, "Nebraska Legal Marijuana NOW Senate candidate endorses Osborn after suspending campaign," 2026-08-21 · Nebraska Examiner, 2026-08-10 · FEC committee record, Marvin for Congress (C00944199) · Nebraska Secretary of State, Final Statewide General Candidate Filing List, certified 2026-09-11
| It does mean | It does not mean |
|---|---|
| His name is printed on the ballot in his party's column, same as any other certified nominee. | He is actively campaigning, fundraising, or asking for votes. |
| A vote cast for him counts exactly the same as any other vote cast in that race. | The state, his party, or anyone else can substitute a different name once August 1 has passed. |
| He remains a legitimate subject of this site's outreach and reporting, the same as every certified candidate. | His endorsement of another candidate changes his own certified status in any way. |
Whether any other 2026 Nebraska candidate, in any race, did the same thing — suspended a campaign after August 1 while staying certified — is a countable question this page does not yet answer. It would take reading every certified candidate's public statements against the same August 1 deadline, race by race. Not pulled yet. If a second case turns up, it goes in the table above, not a new page.
#PROOF · Trust, but verify. Published 2026-09-13. Nebraska. This page names one certified candidate's own public statements and endorsement, reports them with dates and sources, and takes no position on his decision or his race.
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