State and county parties should remain neutral until the primary is over.
Ricketts was appointed in 2023 after impeachment-voting Ben Sasse resigned become some college president (he knew he would never get reelected anyway).
I wonder if Ricketts will play the Murkowski/Cochrane card.
Republicans are great at battling other Repbulicans, wish they were as good at taking on Democrats.
Ricketts probably isn’t losing any sleep over this, nor should he.
Ricketts is not nearly 100% conservative, but he’s not Light Loafers Lindsey Graham either. Ricketts has well over $1 million to work with and the challenger who is being hyped here had $3,587.71 in the bank at last report.
It would be nice if a solidly Republican state like Nebraska was also solidly *conservative*, but it isn’t. With barely a month to go before the filing deadline, no viable Democrat is even in the race since Nebraska is obviously a lost cause for them. The best they can (and will) do is to support the most liberal Republican in the primary; since nobody is currently running at him from the left, that would be Ricketts.
Ricketts should easily cruise to re-election as things stand now. If Chuck Herbster gets into the GOP primary, it will be a lot more interesting.
Herbster got “Roy Moore-d” by the GOP establishment when he tried to run for Governor in ‘22, and a moderate establishment squish won the 3-way primary vs. Herbster and some left-wing state Senator who calls himself a Republican.
In a real sense, RINO’s are much worse than Democrats because their colleagues are more apt to work with them to pass Democrat legislation which otherwise wouldn’t have any chance.
Primary the RINO!
I hope Ricketts goes down to defeat. He was one of the leading saboteurs in 2022. He starved Lake of AZ, Michels of WI, and Mastriano in PA of any money to conduct a decent campaign. Ricketts is the prime reason we have a governor in Arizona by the name of Katie Hobbs. With Republicans like Ricketts, who needs Democrats?
There’s a phenomenon with many Midwestern GOP Senators: Ricketts, Fischer, Rounds, Thune, Ernst and Grassley. I’d classify them as much as Globalists than RINO’s. It’s mainly driven by the farm lobby, international trade and ultimately the government largesse that chases all of it. I’m as interested as anyone to see how it all shakes out with MAGA.
I see a growing clash between farmers and globalism and the environmentalist mentality that comes with it. Much like what’s going on in the Netherlands and Germany. It’s putting these Senators between a rock and a hard place . . . and money talks which doesn’t rub many populists the right way. Ricketts epitomizes it.