WASHINGTON — Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) won a full six-year term Tuesday following a hotly contested campaign against nominally independent candidate Dan Osborn in the reliably GOP state.
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Ricketts, the 62-year-old son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, was appointed to the Senate in January 2023 by Gov. Jim Pillen to fill out the term of Ben Sasse, who resigned after the 2022 midterms to lead the University of Florida — with Ricketts taking the job one week after the end of his own eight-year stretch as Nebraska’s governor.
Osborn, 51, benefited from the lack of a Democrat on the ballot, though Ricketts and his allies branded him “Democrat Dan” and insisted he would join Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont as “independents” who caucus with Senate Democrats.
The union leader, in turn, dubbed Ricketts “Private Equity Pete” to paint him as detached from everyday Nebraskans’ economic struggles amid rising energy prices and renewed inflation caused by the Iran war.
Osborn entered politics after leading a 2021 strike at a Kellogg’s plant in Omaha and launched an unsuccessful challenge to the Cornhusker State’s other senator, Deb Fischer, in 2024.
Observers frequently lumped Osborn in with two other “prairie populists,” Josh Turek in Iowa and Adam Hamilton in Kansas, who have run stronger-than-expected challenges to Republican Senate candidates.
Osborn came under fire in September after leaked audio surfaced of him mocking supporters of President Trump, saying “their lives probably suck so f—king bad.”
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Trump visited Nebraska on Oct. 5 in an effort to get Ricketts across the line, saying the incumbent was “always asking for money for Nebraska” and noting his vote in favor of new tax breaks on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits.
“The Democrats are running a radical left lunatic — he’s a lunatic — named Dan Osborn, a fake independent,” Trump said. “A fake independent who will say anything to get elected.”
