Democrat · Oklahoma's 5th District · 2026
Jena Nelson
Nelson and her husband, Karl, a professor and church choir director, have two children and raise chickens, ducks and bees.
Biography
Jena Nelson and her husband, Karl, have two children, and their home life includes raising chickens, ducks and bees.1 Karl is a university professor and church choir director.1
Nelson taught for more than 16 years, including English composition and academic enhancement for seventh and eighth graders at Deer Creek.12 She was named Oklahoma's 2020 Teacher of the Year and began a year as a statewide teaching ambassador in July 2020.2 Her arts background includes selection to direct at Edinburgh Fringe and present at the International Music Festival in Campina Grande, Brazil.1
Outside classrooms, her work has included small business ownership, corporate leadership development and the acting executive director and programs director roles at Oklahoma Faith Network.1 She also ran for state superintendent of public instruction in 2022.1
For Congress, Nelson supports expanding Medicare drug price negotiations and preventing fraud without reducing benefits.3 She proposes stronger SNAP and WIC food assistance, free public school meals and more border agents, inspection technology and legal work visas.3 Her housing proposals include more construction, limits on junk fees and tax credits for people buying their first homes.3 She faces Republican Stephanie Bice and independents Robert P. Henri and Austin Nieves for Oklahoma's Fifth District seat.4