In a special election widely considered uncompetitive, incumbent U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts is favored over civil rights activist and 2020 Senate write-in candidate Preston Love Jr.
Love, who has compared the race to the biblical battle between David and Goliath, said his travels around Nebraska convinced him that a victory — or at least a close race — may be possible. Those potential paths to victory don’t appear to concern Ricketts, who has declined to debate Love and spent little money on the general election campaign.
The winning candidate will finish out the term of former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, who in 2022 for a tenure as the president of the University of Florida. Ricketts, who was to fill Sasse’s seat last year, has said he will seek a full six-year Senate term in 2026.
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Though Ricketts has been in Nebraska politics for more than a decade, the November election will be his first general election appearance since 2018, when he was reelected to a second term as governor. It is his second time running for Senate after an unsuccessful 2006 campaign in which Ricketts lost by double-digits to an incumbent Democrat.
It is also Love’s second Senate campaign in Nebraska, though the first was an unofficial write-in campaign in 2020 spurred by allegations of inappropriate behavior against Democratic nominee Chris Janicek. The and instead supported Love’s write-in campaign.
Love netted more than 58,000 votes, or 6.3% — the in a Nebraska U.S. Senate race.
Love says winning would be ‘a long shot’
An 82-year-old professor who has never held elected office, Love knows his odds in the 2024 race.
In fact, he said, when he was first asked by the Nebraska Democratic Party to run against Ricketts, he accepted because he thought his candidacy could increase voter turnout in North Omaha and among Nebraska’s Black population — not because he thought he could win.
“I’ve been working to try to get the vote out,†Love said.
Sometime between launching his campaign in January and late September, when Love sat down at his North 24th Street campaign office for an interview, his view of the race shifted.
“I think I could win. I’m still a long shot, of course,†Love said. “But there is a path now that I didn’t see before.â€
That path, Love said, includes overperforming in the Omaha area, breaking about even in Lincoln, and eking out a 30% showing in rural Nebraska.
Love winning a majority of votes in Douglas and Lancaster counties — home to about 45% of the state’s registered voters, according to — is doable, University of Nebraska at Omaha political science professor Randy Adkins said. But even an exceptionally strong showing in Omaha and Lincoln won’t negate the realities of running against an incumbent in a state that has been held by Republicans for nearly two decades.
“You always have to remember that when incumbents are running for reelection, they tend to get reelected unless there is either a scandal of some form or an issue with a major vote that they’ve taken,†Adkins said. “Any challenger (to an incumbent) has to recognize that they’re really fighting an uphill battle. Any Democratic challenger for statewide office in the state of Nebraska has to realize that they’re fighting an uphill challenge as well.â€
Running on a relatively traditional Democratic platform, Love has promised to strengthen and expand Medicaid and codify the right to an abortion in the U.S. Constitution. He supports a ban on assault weapons and has called for a ceasefire in Gaza so humanitarian aid can reach civilians impacted by the war.
Love said the top issues he hears from voters in North Omaha differ from prevalent concerns in, say, McCook or North Platte. Though the need for economic development and concerns about rising costs are a common thread, Love said, he wants to determine how solutions might differ across the state.
To address that, Love said, the first thing he would do upon entering office is conduct a needs assessment in each of the three congressional districts to determine the main priorities for each area.
“In all three districts, I would call a bipartisan group of people who will study the needs of each district,†Love said. “Then we’d capture that as a report with recommendations. And I’ll spend my day in the Senate trying to get as many of those done.â€
Ricketts: Fiscal conservative with Nebraska roots
Ricketts declined an interview with the Omaha World-Herald and did not respond to written questions in time for publication, but his rise to prominence in Nebraska politics is well-documented.
Ricketts was born and raised in Nebraska. His father, Joe Ricketts, is a billionaire who built the family’s wealth by founding the company now known as TD Ameritrade in 1975. Before he entered the political arena, Ricketts worked for his father’s business for more than a decade in a variety of executive roles, including as chief operating officer in 2004.
In 2006, Ricketts made his first foray into Nebraska politics by mounting a challenge to incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson. The result was far from a harbinger of his future political successes: After a narrow win in a five-way Republican primary, Ricketts lost to Nelson by 28 percentage points despite spending nearly $12 million of his own money on the race.
After the loss — the worst U.S. Senate showing for a Nebraska Republican since 1982 — Ricketts refocused. He returned to the board of TD Ameritrade and helped found the Platte Institute, a conservative think tank. In 2007, he sought and received a five-year appointment to serve as the Nebraska Republican Party’s national committeeman.
By 2013, Ricketts was ready to give running for office another try. After a narrow primary win, Ricketts was elected in 2014 as the 40th governor of Nebraska in a lopsided victory over Democrat Chuck Hassebrook. He was re-elected as governor in 2018 with 59% of the vote.
During his eight-year tenure as governor, Ricketts touted fiscal responsibility and social conservatism as pillars of his administration. He oversaw major tax relief packages in 2020 and 2022, projected to deliver more than $12 billion in tax relief by the time they are fully implemented in 2027. He at state universities and once grabbed for saying the legalization of marijuana would “kill your kids.†He supports Nebraska’s current 12-week abortion ban and largely funded a petition drive for a ballot initiative to ban abortion after the first trimester, which Nebraskans will vote on in November.
In the Senate, Ricketts recently and other fertility treatments, though he said in a statement following the vote that IVF should be explicitly protected in any anti-abortion legislation passed in Nebraska. In a response to , Ricketts said federal regulations on contraception are “unnecessary.â€
Ricketts has repeatedly blamed President Joe Biden for rising inflation, that rising prices on consumer goods could be traced back to the $1.9 trillion pandemic recovery bill Biden championed in 2021. In , Ricketts vowed to fight “reckless spending†and to support bills that would increase transparency about government spending.
“High prices are the top concern I hear from Nebraskans,†Ricketts said in his voter guide response. “Runaway spending caused inflation and high prices. Using my experience as governor, I’m fighting to control spending in D.C.â€
Ricketts has been a reliable Republican vote in the Senate, rarely crossing party lines. In the scores, Ricketts placed near the bottom — 85 out of 100 — indicating that he rarely co-sponsors bills from Democratic lawmakers. His Senate counterpart, U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, placed 25th.
Heritage Action for America, an offshoot of the Heritage Foundation, which drafted the Project 2025 transition plan for a possible second Donald Trump presidency, out of 100 for his adherence to conservative principles during his Senate stint. That’s higher than any other member of Nebraska’s congressional delegation, all of whom scored between 57% and 59%.
Ricketts has broken with other Republicans on some issues, primarily on military funding to Ukraine. He is a member of the Senate’s foreign relations committee and has consistently reiterated his support for the Ukrainian people.
“If we want to avoid sending our young women and men to Europe to fight in a war against Vladimir Putin, the way to do that is give Ukraine weapons they need to fight him now,†he .
Ricketts and his family in recent decades — including to elect Pillen, who would go on to appoint Ricketts to the Senate. Ricketts donated $100,000 directly to Pillen’s 2022 campaign, and he and his family gave more than $1.4 million to a political action committee which ran ads against Pillen’s top opponents in the hotly contested GOP primary election.
The race, by the numbers
The race is widely considered by political forecasters to be safely Republican, though Love has polled ahead of Ricketts in the Omaha area.
In a statewide of 1,293 registered voters in late August, Ricketts sat at 50% with Love at 33%. A of 663 registered voters in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District by The New York Times and Sienna College showed Love leading Ricketts in the so-called “Blue Dot†46% to 43%.
The discrepancy between Love and Ricketts shows up in fundraising numbers: While Ricketts reported more than $1.7 million cash on hand on June 30, Love had less than $7,000, according to .
As of the same date, Ricketts had raised more than $4.2 million and spent about $2.5 million. Much of Ricketts’ spending was in the primary race, where he who ran to his right. Ricketts received about 78% of the primary vote.
Love raised about $164,200 and spent $157,700 during the same time period. He did not face a primary challenger.