President Donald Trump is taking his midterm rescue mission to Nebraska, campaigning alongside Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts as the party works to hold a Senate seat that has unexpectedly become competitive. Trump is headed to Grand Island in the solidly conservative south-central part of the state, part of what he describes as a 32-day blitz of rallies ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
The trip follows stops in ruby-red territory such as Oklahoma and Alabama, and on Wednesday the president will make his second visit in two weeks to Texas for a rally in San Antonio. Ricketts, a former Nebraska governor, told the Associated Press that the president is coming to help him campaign so he can get reelected.
Ricketts was appointed and later elected to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Ben Sasse, who left in 2023 to run the University of Florida. He is now running for his first full six-year term against independent Dan Osborn, a former labor union chief. The race was not initially expected to be competitive but is now being watched closely by both national parties.
At the center of the discontent is the administration's plan to allow more imports of foreign beef, an effort to lower beef prices for consumers that has roiled agriculture-rich Nebraska. Ranchers have rebelled against the proposal, arguing it would undercut them. Ricketts himself has broken with the White House on the issue, telling the AP that the plan to import low-quality foreign beef is not helping Nebraska ranchers and advising the administration to change the policy and pursue longer-term measures to build the size of the herd and bring beef prices down.
Voters across the country are frustrated with Trump's handling of the economy, including persistently high costs for fuel and groceries. That frustration is a major issue for rural voters who have backed the president and his party in recent elections, and it has given Osborn an opening in a state Trump carried by roughly 20 points.
Osborn lost a 2024 Senate race against Republican Sen. Deb Fischer by 7 percentage points. Though national Democrats support him, he has refused to say which party he would caucus with if elected in November. Other independents in the Senate, including Maine's Angus King and Vermont's Bernie Sanders, caucus with Democrats for organizational purposes and committee assignments.
With the Democratic brand remaining deeply unpopular in conservative states, Osborn is not the only declared independent running for the Senate against a Republican this year. In South Dakota, Navy and Air Force veteran Brian Bengs is campaigning as an independent against Republican Sen. Mike Rounds. Bengs ran as a Democrat for the Senate four years ago and was handily defeated by now-Senate Majority Leader John Thune. In Idaho, independent Todd Achilles is challenging GOP Sen. Jim Risch.
In Nebraska, Democratic voters chose Cindy Burbank as their party nominee earlier this year, but she campaigned on ensuring that no votes would be siphoned from Osborn in the general election and has since formally dropped out of the race.
Osborn has been traveling across Nebraska to hold meetings in all 93 counties and has repeatedly criticized Ricketts for not holding town halls to meet with constituents. Ricketts, whose family founded TD Ameritrade and owns Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs, served as governor from 2015 to 2023.
In the House, the Grand Island area is represented by Republican Rep. Adrian Smith, whose race is not expected to be close. Nebraska does have a competitive House race farther east in Omaha, considered the state's «blue dot» because the area's electoral vote in presidential elections often goes to Democrats.