Terry's Elections Guide and Predictions: Nebraska
Senate (Democratic-held)
Ben Nelson (D) 62 - Pete Ricketts (R) 27
This one was a comedy of errors for Team Republican. Nelson is popular in Nebraska, but he's still a Democrat in a very conservative state. His three biggest threats for reelection were from Governor Mike Johanns, who was appointed Secretary of Agriculture in early 2005; Lt. Gov. Dave Heineman, who ascended to the governor's office and ran for governor in his own right; and legendary Nebraska football coach and current congressman Tom Osborne, who decided to run for governor and lost in the primary. Since none of them ran, the job fell upon Ameritrade heir Pete Ricketts, who self-funded the race but didn't seem to be up to par as a campaigner. The Nelson campaign has stayed aggressive, and since this was considered a potentially close race early in the cycle, the DSCC, the Nelson campaign and the Nebraska Democratic Party have an effective field program in place that will hopefully pay off for down-ticket races. Finally, I want to point out the difference between Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson: they're both conservative, but Ben Nelson never dimes out the Democratic Party. He never publicly criticizes Democrats for some policy position that will lead them down the road to electoral ruin. Even if he privately believed it (and I have no idea one way or the other) he never enables Republican mischaracterizations by calling Democrats tax-hikers or weak on terror. Ben Nelson says he's an independent voice who will side with the president when he's right, and won't when he's wrong. That's the kind of independent I like.
NE-01 (Republican-held)
Jeff Fortenberry (R) 55 - Maxine Moul (D) 44
There have been some favorable polls here recently, but I'm not hearing enough good things to convince me she's pulling this out. Moul is a former lieutenant governor, so theoretically she has some experience and connections. I'm not sure if she's a weak candidate or if she'll be a more serious threat in 2008.
NE-03 (Open, Republican-held)
Scott Kleeb (D) 51 - Adrian Smith (R) 47
This is another great race where no one thought Democrats had a real shot at the beginning of the cycle. Scott Kleeb is a fourth-generation Nebraska rancher with a graduate degree in international relations from Yale. I found his commercials to be kind of dull, but they seem to be popular in the district. His opponent, Adrian Smith, is almost entirely funded by the economically ultraconservative Club for Growth, which just so happens to oppose the farm subsidies that's a primary economic driver in Nebraska's 3rd district, the western two-thirds of the state. So Kleeb has been able to hit Smith pretty hard, and Kleeb internal polling showed him up eight on October 30th. With the Ben Nelson turnout operation and the Nebraska Democratic Party's new 93-county strategy helping them out, I think Kleeb's going to pull off the shocker here.