Earlier this month, the Omaha World-Herald reported that former Gov. Dave Heineman was considering running, a development confirmed by sources who spoke to him.
Heineman is not without Trump credentials. He was an honorary chairman of Trump’s re-election campaign in Nebraska and sat on the board of directors of one of Herbster’s companies. And other contenders are already taking Trump to the electorate in their earlier revelations. In an introductory video for his campaign, Jim Pillen, a regent of the University of Nebraska and primary candidate, promised to ‘defend President Trump’s progress in growing our economy and fight hard for the forgotten men and women who Washington left behind for a long time. ‘
But it will be difficult for anyone to chair Trump Herbster, who was the former president’s leading agricultural adviser in 2016, and chair the Farmers and Ranchers for Trump committee in 2020. During 2020, he had more than $ 1.1 million given to pro-Trump groups. campaign and attended the demonstration at the Capitol on 6 January. He said he left Washington before the ensuing riot.
Nebraska enjoys some independence from traditional Republican orthodoxy. Its legislature is non-partisan and unicameral, and voters in the Bacon district gave Joe Biden an election last year – something that has only happened twice for a Democrat in Nebraska in the past half century.
According to Republicans in Nebraska, former Representative Brad Ashford, the Democrat who lost his seat to Bacon in 2016, said: “I do not think you need to be Trump all the time … Nebraska Republicans are much more moderate than the party. “
Or as State Senator Brett Lindstrom of Omaha puts it: “You do not have to be the toughest Trumpster of the bunch.”
The job, says Lindstrom, who is preparing for his likely election for governor, is undeniably that of Herbster. But Lindstrom, who, like most Republicans, supported Trump, believes any endorsement in government is unlikely to be decisive.
“People are pretty independent,” he said. “They are business owners … You care about your family, some neighbors, your community, that’s what matters to people. I do not think it is whether you support Trump or not. That’s kind of what we can do for Nebraska, not necessarily what Trump can do for Nebraska. ‘
If Trump does put his thumb on the scale, the calculation for those who do not receive his blessing will become more complicated – especially if the size of the field swells. In 2014, nou-Gov. Pete Ricketts, named, won the state’s multi-candidate primary series with just over a quarter of the primary election voice. The fear of some traditionalist Republicans in Nebraska is that Herbster has a sufficiently high floor of one-sided Trump loyalists to do the same, if too many of them are going on.
To prevent that, according to multiple Republicans familiar with the dynamics of the race, every other candidate will work to divide the votes in the sprawling, strong Republican and rural western part of the state, hoping for Herbster’s power there to dilute while applying their own. numbers in the more populated eastern part of the state where Lincoln and Omaha live. If Herbster could think of winning a plurality of votes, any of the other candidates could do the same.
It is possible that the race for governor, where taxes, jobs, schools and the economy are at the forefront, may not be as nationalized as federal races. Bryan Slone, the Nebraska chamber of commerce president who elected him governor in 2014 and is considering running again, said all of the candidates “reasonably agree with the core of conservative Republican values” and “are probably fairly supportive of Trump’s policy.”