{"id":73430,"date":"2026-05-12T20:54:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/republican-ricketts-wins-gop-primary-in-nebraska-advances-to-key-senate-showdown\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:54:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:54:59","slug":"republican-ricketts-wins-gop-primary-in-nebraska-advances-to-key-senate-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/republican-ricketts-wins-gop-primary-in-nebraska-advances-to-key-senate-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Ricketts wins GOP primary in Nebraska, advances to key Senate showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts is a step closer to serving a full six-year term in the Senate, after winning renomination in red-leaning Nebraska’s primary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ricketts, who was appointed in 2023 to replace Ben Sasse, and who won a 2024 special election to fill out the final two years of Sasse’s term, topped four GOP primary challengers on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports.<\/p>\n

Ricketts now heads to this autumn’s midterm elections, where he will face off in what’s expected to be a competitive Senate race against independent candidate Dan Osborn, the industrial mechanic and military veteran who gave Republican Sen. Deb Fischer a scare in her 2024 re-election.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s primary was held with less than six months to go until the midterm elections<\/u><\/a>, when Republicans aim to hold their razor-thin House and slim Senate majorities, and Democrats hope to ride a blue wave to escape the political wilderness.<\/p>\n

DEMOCRACY \u201926: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“Thank you, Nebraska! I’m honored to be your Republican nominee,” Ricketts said in a social media post following his primary victory.<\/p>\n

But looking ahead to the general election showdown, he added, “Our work is far from over.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a fundraising pitch, Ricketts argued, “Out-of-state liberal donors are going to pour millions into Nebraska this fall. Chip in now and send them a message: Nebraska elections won\u2019t be bought by liberals in California.”<\/p>\n

Even though the Nebraska Democratic Party supports Osborn<\/a> in the general election, community college instructor Cindy Burbank and pastor Bill Forbes faced off for the Democrats’ nomination in the primary.<\/p>\n

Burbank secured the Democratic nomination, the Associated Press reports, as she crushed Forbes in the primary election.<\/p>\n

Both candidates were last-minute filers, and some Nebraska Democrats alleged that Forbes jumped into the race so that a Democrat would be on the fall ballot and siphon votes away from Osborn to help Ricketts.<\/p>\n

SIX MONTHS TILL MIDTERMS: THE TEN RACES THAT WILL DETERMINE THE SENATE’S MAJORITY<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Forbes denied the claims.<\/p>\n

Burbank says she jumped into the race to keep Forbes off the ballot in November.<\/p>\n

Ricketts is the eldest son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, and, along with other family members, is part owner of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n

DEMOCRATS EYE NARROW PATH TO CAPTURE SENATE MAJORITY, BUT ONE WRONG MOVE COULD SINK THEM<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Ricketts won election in 2014 and re-election in 2018 as Nebraska governor. One week after finishing his second term, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate by his successor as governor, Republican Jim Pillen.<\/p>\n

Top nonpartisan political handicappers rank the Senate general election showdown in Nebraska as likely Republican.<\/p>\n

The GOP currently controls the Senate<\/a> with a 53-47 majority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts is a step closer to serving a full six-year term in the Senate, after winning renomination in red-leaning Nebraska’s primary. Ricketts, who was appointed in 2023 to replace Ben Sasse, and who won a 2024 special election to fill out the final two years of Sasse’s term, topped four GOP primary … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}