Add deep red Nebraska to the list of states where Republicans are hitting the panic button that another GOP-held Senate seat could be in trouble.
According to an exclusive report from The Wall Street Journal, the Senate Leadership Fund, the "big-donor group" aligned with Senate Republicans, plans to spend heavily to help Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) in the closing weeks before Election Day. The Journal said the spending highlights an all-out effort to protect "a once-safe Republican seat" amid broader economic angst in America’s heartland.
The group said it will spend $8 million through Election Day on Nov. 3, bringing its planned total in the race to $15 million. It has already spent $7 million through an entity called Cornhusker Majority, which it hadn’t previously disclosed it was funding, the Journal reported.
Ricketts faces independent Dan Osborn, who is backed by two super PACs, Working Class Majority PAC and Nebraska Values PAC. Osborn’s campaign has spent roughly $2.1 million on advertising since the primary, according to AdImpact data cited by the Journal. The Win It Back PAC, funded by the Club for Growth and billionaire Jeff Yass, among others, previously put $2.3 million into ads. Before the new announcement, almost $34 million had been spent in the race since the primary through Monday, AdImpact data showed, with Cornhusker the biggest single spender.
Polls have shown "a tight contest," the Journal reported, though election watchers favor Ricketts to keep the seat with voting already underway. President Donald Trump flew to Nebraska to campaign with Ricketts, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is planning to campaign in the state, the Journal reported.
Both candidates have said they expect a close race. “Your word-of-mouth recommendation is the best advertising I can have,” Ricketts told supporters at an event in Lincoln in August. “This race may determine who is gonna control the U.S. Senate.”
“We’re proving to Nebraska and the country that we weren’t just a one-hit wonder,” Osborn countered in an interview that month.
The cash comes amid wider Republican worries about holding the Senate, where the party has a 53-47 advantage, as gasoline and diesel prices stay high, the Journal reported.
“Everybody should take every race seriously,” Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) said in an interview last month. She said she knows “how far the money goes in Nebraska.”