Nebraska’s GOP Senate primary: David vs. Goliath ‘if David had ‘a Fruity Pebble’

OMAHA — John Glen Weaver, the challenger toting his toddler son to campaign events in Nebraska’s unexpected U.S. Senate primary, wants voters to see his race as a referendum for populist Republicans against the leading figure of the GOP establishment.

U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, appointed to the Senate after two terms as Nebraska’s governor, wants GOP voters to see him building a conservative bulwark against President Joe Biden’s worst spending, economic and immigration policy impulses.

Political observers consider Ricketts the primary’s overwhelming favorite, given his advantages in fundraising and name ID. One GOP consultant outside of the race described it as “David vs. Goliath if David were fighting with a Fruity Pebble.” 

The congressional delegation and most of the state’s GOP donors back Ricketts, who at $7.35 million for various committees has raised 153 times Weaver’s $48,000 tally. Weaver has the backing of the populist-led state GOP and more than 20 county parties.

The last U.S. senator in Nebraska to lose in a primary or general election was David Karnes, who like Ricketts was a gubernatorial appointee. He lost in the general election in 1988 to a Democrat, former Gov. Bob Kerrey.

Dona-Gene Barton, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said 95% of Senate incumbents win re-election. Beating them is “incredibly difficult,” she said, even if they were appointed or won a special election to fill a vacancy. 

Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, Nebraska’s  last Republican senator to face party pushback, won re-election in 2020 by 50 percentage points. His populist challenger, Lancaster County Republican Party chairman Matt Innis, won eight of Nebraska’s 93 counties.

“Once they’re there, it’s incredibly difficult for them to lose their seat,” Barton said. 

Demanding loyalty to Trump

Some activist Republicans in Nebraska — including volunteers for the party and GOP campaigns — have demanded more loyalty to former President Donald Trump from elected officials, particularly Congress. It’s part of a national dynamic affecting the GOP electorate.

Ricketts has a complicated history on that score. He endorsed Trump in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 general elections but backed other candidates during the competitive stages of the 2016 race and stayed quiet during the competitive stages of the 2024 primary. 

He also angered some by taking sides in the 2022 GOP governor’s race. Ricketts backed then-University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen against multi-state agribusinessman Charles Herbster, who secured Trump’s endorsement. 

Pillen appointed Ricketts to the Senate in January 2023, after the University of Florida hired Sasse as its president. Weaver contends Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did so as a favor to Joe Ricketts, Pete’s dad, who was one of DeSantis’ top donors.

He also contends Pillen appointed Ricketts as payback for his support in 2022. Both Ricketts and Pillen have dismissed such accusations as nonsense. Pillen said Ricketts was the most qualified of 111 applicants, and he interviewed nine.

“How many Republicans would be in this race right now if not for the appointment?” Weaver asked, pointing to Nebraska’s history of competitive GOP primaries for open seats. Ricketts narrowly won a six-way GOP primary for governor in 2014.

Money is ‘a form of free speech’

During an episode of the Examiner’s “Picking Corn” podcast on Nebraska’s 2024 Senate races, Ricketts was asked what he tells critics who say he and his family have essentially bought his political posts.

“Money is a form of free speech…,” he said. “You want to let people know where you stand on the issues, how you’re different from your opponent, and they don’t know that unless you take out a TV ad or an internet ad.”

Weaver said most voters don’t want the donor class to rule their politics, but said he underestimated the role of money in elections. 

“Pete’s built a political machine in Nebraska,” Weaver said on the podcast. “He’s given millions of dollars … and by giving them money for their campaigns and their causes he’s deterred them … from entering the race.” 

This is Weaver’s second run for a congressional office. In 2022 he competed against Mike Flood in the GOP primary shortly after Flood won a special election to represent the 1st Congressional District. Weaver earned 6.6% of the vote.

A changing Nebraska GOP

A former Air Force lieutenant colonel and senior navigator, Weaver has made a fuller embrace of the Trump-focused MAGA wing of the party a central theme of his campaign. He argues there is more disdain for Ricketts among Republicans than polling shows.

His stance echoes public sentiments from some of the populist GOP activists who helped wrest the Nebraska Republican Party from a team more loyal to Ricketts in 2022, many of whom previously led the Lancaster County GOP.

Nebraska’s National GOP Committeewoman Fanchon Blythe and many local Republicans she recruited to win control of the leading committee of the Douglas County GOP cheered at a recent meeting when Weaver asked them if they wanted to see a Senate debate between him and Ricketts.

He criticized Ricketts as not doing enough to protest how the criminal justice system is treating Trump during his criminal trials. He said if he were elected, he would be in New York City, “going after the judges and the crooked judicial systems that we’ve got.”

“I tell people he’s running against me because neither one of us has been elected,” Weaver said of Ricketts. “We need courageous leaders stepping up to secure our country, support our military and support Nebraska agriculture.”

Trump in 2022 called Ricketts a “RINO” for backing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a conservative slur that is short for “Republican in Name Only.” Ricketts, asked about the label, laughed and said Republicans won’t always agree on every race.

Ricketts said he aims to take his Nebraska approach to governing national. He said that as governor, he was proudest of working with state senators to slow the growth of state spending, cutting income taxes and spending excess funds on tax credits for property taxes.

He says he is focused on national defense, economic growth and keeping the government from “interfering in our lives.” He said he is working with the rest of the delegation to try to help secure a new farm bill for all who rely on Nebraska agriculture.

He has proposed stricter congressional limits on the Biden administration’s implementation of mandates pushing for more of the nation’s cars and trucks to be electric, saying battery and charging technology won’t be ready in rural areas.

Foreign aid fight

Ricketts and Weaver disagreed on aid for Ukraine in defense against Russia. Ricketts said dictators like Vladimir Putin follow the same patterns — they tell you what they’re going to do and do it. Putin wants to recreate the old Soviet Union, he said.

“He will not stop there,” Ricketts said of the invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb.

Putin, he said, would likely invade one of the NATO allies like the Baltic states or Poland, and “that’s World War III. And so while it’s very expensive to support Ukraine right now … it’s a lot less expensive than World War III.”

Weaver, who said he fought in “an endless war” in Afghanistan, does not want to see American lives lost to another in Ukraine. He said the United States is $33 trillion in debt and “wasted” taxpayer money for two years without progress in either direction.

“First comes the money,” Weaver said. “Then comes the troops, and I’m just completely against … sending our money over there and certainly absolutely against sending soldiers over there, and so it’s a slippery slope.”

John Glen Weaver

He said he would rather build better training partnerships with other countries that might need protection from potential aggression, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Ricketts said that kind of thinking risks American lives.

Both candidates supported aid for Israel in its fight against Hamas. Both expressed faith-based reasons for that support, based on their Christian beliefs, and both expressed national security reasons to support an American ally in the Middle East.

Ricketts said he hopes that one day Israel will be secure enough to reestablish a government that focuses more of its attention on the needs of the Palestinian people and Gaza. 

Both want border push

On immigration, both candidates criticized Biden’s decision to stop the “Remain in Mexico” approach of his predecessor, Trump. Both said that leads to people caught on the border who overstay their court dates. Both described the border as “chaotic.”

Ricketts said he wants Congress to force the current administration to adopt many of the policies of the former administration. As governor, he deployed members of the Nebraska National Guard and Nebraska State Patrol to the Texas border with Mexico.

Weaver said he wants to “harden” the southern and northern borders and re-emphasize legal immigration. He said the United States should be able to know who is crossing the border, when and why. He said he understands border security costs billions.

Both candidates bashed Biden for inflationary pressures. Ricketts said families are losing 5% or more of their purchasing power and feel it. Weaver blamed Biden’s deficit spending, but not Trump’s.

Biden and Trump each added significantly to the deficit during and after the pandemic, but economists have been divided over which president’s spending contributed more to inflation.

Based on early fundraising and donation patterns, Ricketts is building a national political network in much the same way he did as governor, by donating to conservatives he supports and building coalitions with them on issues he cares about.

Back home, Ricketts is spending money on campaign TV and radio advertisements, trying to establish a strong baseline of statewide performance. He might also be sending the state GOP a message.

None of Nebraska’s five Republican congressional incumbents sought or received the state party’s endorsement this cycle after the party openly courted primary challengers. All five are favored to advance to the general election this November.

The winner of the Ricketts-Weaver race will likely face Omaha civil rights activist Preston Love Jr., a longtime member of the Nebraska Democratic Party who has said a state that wants to do better needs to stop sending the same people to Washington, D.C.

Weaver said that if elected, he would only serve two terms in the Senate, in part to avoid being considered part of the establishment. Ricketts said he is learning the importance of seniority in Congress from his more experienced peers, including Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.

Fischer had said she would run for only two terms as well, but said she ran for a third, in part, because it took more time to build the relationships that help a person rise in Senate leadership within the party leadership structure. In that way, she said, Washington is different from Nebraska. 

The primary election is May 14. Early voting is underway.

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to note that a GOP consultant compared Weaver to David in his battle against Goliath but said Weaver’s pebble might be lighter and less effective.