Ben Sasse (from left to right), was joined by Sarah Palin, Sens. Ted Cruz (TX) and Mike Lee (UT) at a rally to support the conservative candidate in the Nebraska Republican Senate primary Tuesday. Regardless, the Nebraska Senate race is rated “Safe Republican” on PPD’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions.
With less than 12 hours before the polls open in the Nebraska Senate primary, Ben Sasse is the front-runner in what appears to be a tightening contest. However, though all campaigns agree that Omaha Bank President Sid Dinsdale’s late surge is real, PPD now projects Ben Sasse will be the Republican nominee in November’s Nebraska Senate race.
For most of the race, Sasse and former Republican State Treasurer Shane Osborn, the latter of the two once the front-runner in the eyes of many, have all but ignored Sid Dindale as they clobbered each other. Ben Sasse enjoyed the backing of several prominent conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, Senate Conservatives Fund, the Madison Project and FreedomWorks. The latter, FreedomWorks, initially endorsed Osborne, but retracted their endorsement back on March 30 and opted instead to back Sasse.
“Both Osborn and Sasse are great people, and this was not a decision taken lightly,” FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe wrote in an email to PPD back in April.
“The question at the heart of this decision is, who would caucus with the Freedom Caucus, and who would fall in line with the establishment? At this point, it is clear that Shane Osborn formed allegiances with Mitch McConnell and the K Street lobbying class.”
In the end, we believe that it will be the support from these groups will put Sasse over the top. The Madison Group responded to the late challenge with a 60-second radio ad condemning Dinsdale as a “counterfeit conservative.” The Club for Growth coughed up six-figures for a television ad campaign targeting Dinsdale.
It’s working, and it’s a testament to the problem conservatives have when it comes to getting behind a single insurgent candidate and a coherent unified message. Anti-establishment candidates have not performed well this election cycle, despite the anti-incumbent and anti-establishment sentiment. Yet in the Nebraska Senate race they really pulled it together. This allowed Sasse to effectively get his message across to the voters.
Nebraska Republican primary voters have consistently cited without prompt — or, indicated when prompted — how Sasse’s health care experience made him uniquely qualified to handle the issue that fires them up the most — ObamaCare. While most of the scant polling has shown a relatively tight contest — save for the latest Magellan Strategies survey — Sasse had begun to poll better than the other hopefuls in the general election contest among Republicans, suggesting a lean in his direction among the electorate.
Aside from a brief round of bad press singling out the minority leader, the fight between the Establishment Republicans and the anti-Establishment conservatives may have been overblown. Though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may or may not personally favor Osborne, the NRSC — National Republican Senatorial Committee — will “plan to support the eventual nominee,” Bill Murphy from the NRSC wrote us in an email.
“Our only role in the Nebraska Senate race is to be a resource for ALL of the candidates,” he said in an email to PPD.
Dinsdale has recently loaned himself $1 million in an effort to combat Sasse and continue his late surge, but we simply believe it’s too late. As previously state, because of the fundamentals — mainly ObamaCare remaining the number one issue in the Republican Party — as well as Sasse’s consistently favorable numbers, we are now projecting Ben Sasse is likely to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. We could very well have misjudged this race, but we haven’t misjudged one yet this cycle, including the special election in FL-13 that contradicted other pundits who believed Alex Sink would be victorious.
The Nebraska Senate race is rated “Safe Republican” on People Pundit Daily’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions.
| Poll | Date | Sample | Sasse | Dinsdale | Osborn | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PPD Average | 4/16 – 5/8 | — | 38 | 24 | 20 | Sasse +14 |
| Magellan Strategies (R) | 5/8 – 5/8 | 525 LV | 38 | 24 | 20 | Sasse +14 |
| Magellan Strategies (R) | 5/5 – 5/6 | 656 LV | 33 | 27 | 20 | Sasse +6 |
| NSON Opinion Strategy | 4/16 – 4/20 | 400 LV | 29 | 13 | 27 | Sasse +2 |
| Harper (R) | 2/3 – 2/4 | 565 LV | 29 | 13 | 30 | Osborn +1 |
