Nebraska Democrats back Omaha activist Preston Love Jr. to challenge Ricketts for US Senate seat
OMAHA, Neb.– Longtime Omaha community activist Preston Love Jr. has announced he is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts for the seat Ricketts was set to fill last year.
Love, 81, launched his campaign Wednesday in north Omaha before a crowd of about 100 people, with the support of some of the state’s top Democrats, including state party executive director Precious McKesson and Sen. Tony Vargas. Vargas is running for Congress for a second time in an effort to unseat Republican Rep. Don Bacon in a closely watched race.
Even with that support, Love acknowledged he is struggling in deep-red Nebraska, where all statewide elected offices and the state’s entire congressional delegation are Republican. The Republican Party also dominates the state legislature, and Nebraska voters have not elected a Democrat president in nearly six decades since voting for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
But Love wasted no time in portraying Ricketts — a former two-term governor of Nebraska and one of the wealthiest senators in the U.S. Senate with an estimated net worth of between $50 million and $100 million — as privileged and out of touch with most voters .
“People here see me at the grocery store,” Love told the crowd. ‘I’m just an ordinary person. And I want you to know that an ordinary person can be a United States Senator. Some of our greatest senators have been regular senators. people.”
Ricketts was appointed to the Senate early last year by his successor, fellow Republican Governor Jim Pillen, to fill a vacancy left when former Senator Ben Sasse resigned to take a job as president of the University of Florida to take. The appointment was for a period of two years, until a special election could be held in 2024 for the remaining two years of the term.
It was a move panned even by some Republicans as giving the appearance of backroom dealing. Ricketts had heavily supported Pillen to succeed him as governor, donating more than $100,000 of his own money directly to Pillen’s campaign. Ricketts also donated more than $1 million to the Conservative Nebraska political action committee, which ran a slew of attack ads against Pillen’s primary opponents.
Love hopes to appeal to voters who have been turned off by Ricketts’ nomination and who want to see more congressional action to address issues affecting both urban and rural residents. That includes better access to healthcare, more jobs, climate change legislation and gun regulation to curb mass shootings in the US
It’s the second time the state party has endorsed Love for the Senate seat — although the first came under unusual, scandal-plagued circumstances. State Democrats chose Love as their candidate for the seat in September 2020 after fellow Democrat Chris Janicek, who won the primary, refused the party’s demands to drop out of the race after sending lewd text messages about a campaign worker.
Love was the party’s third choice after its initial candidate, the late former U.S. Rep. Brad Ashford, dropped out just days after announcing his bid. The state party’s top choice, Alisha Shelton, a mental health practitioner from Omaha, was barred from running for office under Nebraska’s “sore loser” law because she lost to Janicek in the primary. Sasse subsequently won re-election overwhelmingly.
Love is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Black Votes Matter Institute of Community Engagement and an adjunct professor of Black Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.