OMAHA, Neb. — Marine Corps veteran Gunner Arellano is a Donald Trump man — he voted for the president three times — but, he said, he won’t be casting a ballot for Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., in November.
Dan Osborn, an independent who has the backing of the state’s Democratic Party, is “more for the people” than Ricketts, Arellano, a 35-year-old tobacconist, said in an interview at the S.G. Roi cigar shop in downtown Omaha late last month.
While Arellano is familiar with Ricketts, a former two-term governor who ranks high on the list of wealthiest senators, he said that the senator isn’t present enough.
“All those politicians, they want to come around when it’s election time, right?” he said. “Come down on a Wednesday in the middle of your term, you know.”
Arellano said he’ll vote for Osborn, and voters like him are the reason that Democrats in Nebraska and at the national level hope they might be able to swipe a Senate seat in this heavily Republican state. They’re even more optimistic about flipping the state’s Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District, where Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won in 2024 and Republican Rep. Don Bacon is retiring.
In that year, Osborn surprised many political observers by running a competitive campaign against Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., who ended up winning by a little more than 6 percentage points while Trump took the state by 20 points. The latter margin is one reason, along with Ricketts’ record of winning statewide races at the gubernatorial and Senate levels, that Republicans are confident they can keep the seat.
Omaha was the last in an eight-stop, five-state tour that NBC News reporters took through battleground congressional districts — and states with competitive Senate races — along Interstate 80 in late August. Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats to take control of the chamber next year, and Nebraska has emerged at the edge of the small list of states that could be in play in November.
While there hasn’t been much in the way of independent polling of the state, Republicans are facing into a national wind as Trump’s approval ratings have cratered. Amid the ongoing war with Iran, rising prices for gas and diesel fuel, and Trump tariff policies that have wreaked havoc on rural America, Democrats see a resurgence of a brand of prairie populism that they believe will boost their candidates here in the heartland.
That’s why Democrats say they aren’t as worried as they might be about an influx of GOP ad spending on the race, both from Ricketts and outside groups. Since Sept. 1, the Republican side has spent $7 million on the air, with another $8 million booked before Election Day, according to AdImpact data analyzed by NBC News. Osborn and groups backing him have spent $3.5 million and have reserved another $1.5 million.
The money differential suggests Republicans are concerned about holding a seat that has been in their hands since 1997 — or at least committed to making sure they don’t take victory for granted.
“I think you’re going to see, when Pete starts defining him [Osborn], and some of the outside groups come in to do that, then it’s going to go back to a safe red seat for us,” David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, which is backing Ricketts, said in an interview in early September.
Jane Kleeb, the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said in a telephone interview that she believes the money won’t be dispositive because Republicans and Ricketts have worn out their welcome.
“Basically, voters are saying, ‘We’re not buying what you’re selling,’” she said. “So it’s not going to matter.”
Most Republicans will stick with Ricketts, but some see Osborn as a candidate they will — or could — vote for.
“Working man, union guy, seems grounded in the ways of Nebraska, an outsider,” said Chris Holder, 45, of Elkhorn, who works as a business analyst at Union Pacific Railroad. “I haven’t really vetted Osborn a whole bunch, but I am giving him consideration.”
It’s an easy sale for Democrats here.
Sally Guest, 48, a registered nurse whose husband, Larry, no longer works after an accident, said the two of them, both Democrats, are eager to vote for Osborn.
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“Pete Ricketts is the millionaire class, and he’s not served Nebraska well,” Sally said. “So I hope we don’t get any more of Pete Ricketts.”
The Guests are acutely aware of health insurance costs because of her job and his disability, Sally said. Ricketts voted for Trump-backed legislation that cut back on the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. The Guests have insurance for him but not for her — she pays for medical care out of pocket — because of the price.
“God forbid I have a medical emergency or end up in the emergency room for an accident,” she said. “I’ll have to — I don’t know — I’d be better off dying.”
But Todd Going, a business development manager in Omaha, said he plans to vote for Ricketts. A onetime Democrat, the 57-year-old Going said that party’s leftward movement — across the country, not just in Nebraska — makes him wary of voting to give it more power.
“There’s been a total flip-flop on what party is representing the working class and the taxpayers,” he said. “And now I see the Democrat Party as totally different than even when I switched. It’s even more so. You see the socialists and the communists thing going on — what’s happening in all these elections all over the country, it’s very concerning to me.”
At the House level, all the Republicans who spoke to NBC News said they plan to vote for Brinker Harding, an Omaha city councilman who is trying to re-create the kind of electorate that voted for Bacon three times. National Republicans say it’s a tough race — one of two currently held by Republicans that the Cook Political Report rates as leaning toward Democrats — but they believe Harding is hitting his marks.
“Brinker Harding is a business leader and public servant with a record of results in Nebraska who is building a coalition of Republicans, Democrats and independents alike who believe in his vision of common sense over crazy,” Zach Bannon, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said, adding that Harding is “poised to win this November.”
His opponent, Democrat Denise Powell, won a crowded primary earlier this year. The Guests said they don’t know much about her, but they will, as Larry put it, “vote blue” in a district that Democrats call the “blue dot” because it sometimes goes for their party in presidential elections while the rest of the state and most neighboring states typically vote Republican red.
While Harding is portraying Powell as too extreme for the district, she is tying him as tightly as she can to Trump. So are national Democrats.
“Nebraska voters want someone who will go to Congress and fight for them, not another party rubber stamp,” said Madison Andrus, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, adding that Harding “bends the knee to Donald Trump.”
