GOP anxiety over 53-47 Senate majority accompanies SLF’s $8M cash infusion

The Senate Leadership Fund, the big-donor group aligned with Senate Republican leadership, said it will spend the additional $8 million through Election Day on Nov. 3, bringing to $15 million the total it plans to spend to defend the Republican-held seat. The group had already spent $7 million in the race through a previously undisclosed entity called Cornhusker Majority.

The cash infusion comes amid broader worries inside the Republican Party about losing its 53-47 Senate majority, accompanied by anxiety over high gasoline and diesel prices and economic angst in America’s heartland.

Ricketts faces independent challenger Dan Osborn, a union leader who led a 2021 strike against Kellogg’s Omaha plant. Osborn came within about seven percentage points of unseating Sen. Deb Fischer (R., Neb.) in 2024 as an independent, even as President Trump carried Nebraska by 16 points in that year’s presidential race. Both candidates have said they expected the race to be close.

President Trump flew to Nebraska last week to campaign with Ricketts, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) is planning to campaign in the state. Sen. Deb Fischer (R., Neb.) said in an interview last month, “Everybody should take every race seriously.” She said she knows “how far the money goes in Nebraska.”

Ricketts’ campaign, which relies in large part on $5.25 million he contributed from his own funds, had spent almost $8 million on advertising through Monday, according to AdImpact, which tracks television and digital campaign spending. Osborn’s campaign had spent roughly $2.1 million on advertising since the primary, based on AdImpact data.

In total, almost $34 million had been spent in the race since the primary through Monday, AdImpact data show. Cornhusker Majority has been the biggest single spender in the contest. Earlier, the Win It Back PAC — funded by the fiscally conservative Club for Growth and the billionaire Jeff Yass, among others — had put $2.3 million into advertising. Osborn is also backed by two super PACs, Working Class Majority PAC and Nebraska Values PAC.

Ricketts has worked to portray Osborn as a Democrat while encouraging Republicans to turn out, even as Osborn frames his 2024 showing as evidence the race is competitive. “We’re proving to Nebraska and the country that we weren’t just a one-hit wonder,” Osborn said in an interview in August.

Ricketts, speaking to a small group of supporters at an event in Lincoln, Neb., that same month, said, “Your word-of-mouth recommendation is the best advertising I can have.” He added: “This race may determine who is gonna control the U.S. Senate.”

Polls have shown a tight contest, though election watchers favor Ricketts to hang on to the seat. Voting is already under way in the state.