Ricketts Retains Senate Seat, Beating Independent Challenger in Nebraska

Nebraska Republicans kept their hold on the state’s U.S. Senate delegation as voters sent incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) back to Washington for his first full six-year term.

The Associated Press declared former Nebraska governor Ricketts the winner at 3:27 a.m. ET, defeating independent candidate Dan Osborn.

In a campaign victory speech, Ricketts said the campaign defeated more than just one independent candidate.

“What the Democrat Social America found out tonight was socialism does not work in Nebraska,” Ricketts told his supporters at a watch party.

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Ricketts campaigned on his experience and track record as Nebraska’s two-term governor and incumbent U.S. senator. Ricketts served as governor from 2015 to 2023.

“Folks, they have a radical vision for this country. But tonight, we showed them it stops here in Nebraska,” he said. “We don’t need a socialist ideology. We know what makes America great.”

Ricketts said that outside interests had spent millions to campaign against him. He said everyday Nebraskans showed up to vote regardless of how much the opposition spent.

During his campaign, Ricketts reminded voters that the current economic situation is still better on most counts than any time during the Biden administration. He also said that once the war in Iran is ended, fuel prices, a major sticking point for voters, will come down.

Gov. Jim Pillen appointed Ricketts to finish Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R-Neb.) term after Sasse resigned to become president of the University of Florida.

Speaking at his watch party as the results came in, Osborn said all signs pointed to a Ricketts win.

“I would just urge Sen. Ricketts to take care of the coalition of people here tonight,” he said. “The Democrats, Republicans, Independents here. I mean, after all, it’s his duty as a senator to represent all of us, right? All the Nebraskans regardless of political party.”

Ricketts won President Donald Trump’s endorsement and vowed to keep supporting the president’s low-tax, secure-border, small-government agenda.

Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon (R-Dist. 2) said that Trump’s endorsement may have been a drag on Ricketts’s campaign.

He said Trump’s tariffs and the war with Iran have not played well in Nebraska, where the higher cost of living, including fuel prices, has squeezed Nebraska’s farmers. He pointed out that historically Republicans have opposed tariffs, and that it is difficult for them to defend a policy they have generally opposed.

He also said Trump is more confrontational and less willing to work across the aisle. He said the solution is to govern in the style of President Ronald Reagan, who is remembered for working with Democrats.

“You gotta work across the party lines to get stuff done,” Bacon told The Epoch Times.

“I am absolutely willing to accept those results,” Trump told The New York Times. “We’ll work with the Democrats, and we’ll, you know, look forward to working with them. We’ll probably work something out.”

When the president went on Fox News to talk about the results, he drew some lines.

Osborn, an industrial mechanic and U.S. Navy veteran, ran his campaign as a blue-collar everyman candidate standing up for the average American in the face of the moneyed interests that he said Ricketts represents.

He also carried the endorsement and support of Nebraska’s Democratic Party, as well as many of the state’s independents. He echoed the Democratic campaign mantra that Republicans are the party of high prices, protecting the rich, and shutting out the working class.