OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – When Ben Sasse When he heard that Nebraska Republican Party activists were prepared to censure him for giving insufficient support to Donald Trump, the Republican senator did not try to talk about it. Instead, he punched her first.
In a five-minute video posted on Facebook and YouTube, Sasse snatched fellow Republicans to pursue a “personality cult” and “act as if politics were religion.”
It is the focus of the apologies that the Nebraskans have come to expect – and even appreciate – from their minor senator, who perhaps more than any other rising Republican leader cultivates anti-Trumpism as his brand.
Sasse has said Trump’s allegations of election fraud were “lies” and that Trump “upset a crowd that attacked the Capitol” on Jan. 6, when Congress voted to declare Joe Biden’s election victory. Sasse is among the small group of Republicans considered most likely to vote to convict Trump on charges of inciting insurrection when the indictment is tried in the Senate he concludes.
Sasse’s criticism of Trump is infuriating many activists in deeply Republican Nebraska. But Sasse is also earning some respect for expressing himself in his opinion, even when it’s unpopular, a trait some Republicans said reminded them of the former president himself.
“I’d rather he says what he sees and what he thinks,” said Tracy Fackler, owner of an Omaha car repair shop, who, like many across the state, said she voted for Trump for the same reason.
Sasse, who was elected for a second six-year term last year, shouldn’t worry too much about the consequences of his campaign against Trump in a state that Trump gained 18 percentage points in November. Sasse’s most immediate risk is how his votes on the ouster will be won with Republicans if he runs for president in 2024.
Of the small number of Republican senators who have sided with Democrats in court, only Sasse, 48, is considered to still aspire to a higher office. In fact, he is betting that there will be a political future when it comes to trying to fight for the return of the Republican party from the establishment.
“We still agree on some important things,” he said in his video, noting the values his party often promoted before Trump. “Rule of law. Constitutionalism. Limited government “.
Even in Nebraska, Sasse has some reason to think there is a market for what he sells.
He won nearly 27,000 more votes than Trump in the state, proving better by holding on to bewildered Republican Party voters and beating Democrats. Twenty-one percent of Nebraska Democrats supported Sasse, while only 4 percent supported Trump, according to a poll in the AP VoteCast electorate. Meanwhile, 7% of Republicans voted for Biden, while 3% of Republicans voted for Sasse’s challenger, Democrat Chris Janicek.
Sasse benefited from a scandal that Janicek suffered. But the headline also showed strength in the swing voting neighborhoods of the Omaha suburbs, places that resemble the presidential neighborhoods of the presidential neighborhoods of the state where Trump lost ground last year.
“I think he’s just a man who upholds common values and principles and doesn’t go with Trump,” said Mike Lewis, a 56-year-old real estate agent from South Omaha and a 30-year-old Democrat who is said to be moderate. “I think he’s a man of morals and principles, not party lines.”
It’s a diversified suburb, older and older, of neighborhoods and small businesses, unlike the pockets of middle-class, working-class voters on the outskirts of Milwaukee or St. Louis. Paul, Minn. The old Omaha Gardens are just a mile east and steam comes out of Nebraska beef and other smaller packaging.
Scratching ice from his sidewalk a few blocks away, Fackler also praised Sasse for “talking about his piece.”
“What he said was not popular because of the way he said it. Everyone just makes dogs out of it, and he just said it like it was, ”Fackler said, adding that he had been an infrequent voter until Sasse ran in 2014 and Trump two years later. participate in the party, you will make a lot of criticism “.
A block away, Leah Fontenelle faced the simple digits of her forward tilt next to Fackler.
“I’d rather have someone talk about their opinion than just bow to the party,” said the 65-year-old retired medical supplies director, who voted for Trump. “The party doesn’t speak for everyone.”
But their elected officials should represent the views of the party, Kolene Woodward said.
More than 450 miles west, the Scotts County Bluff County presidency had become enraged with Sasse in mid-January after the senator said Trump had “constantly lied by claiming he had won the election by defeat.” that the then president was abandoned in his duty to defend the Constitution and maintain the rule of law ”during the siege of the Capitol.
“He has made such a public show of his hatred of President Trump. And that’s not how Nebraska feels, “Woodward said. She described Sasse as” Oh, so disrespectful to the former president. ”
Three other county GOP committees have voted to censor Sasse. The state Republican Central Committee is expected to consider at least eight separate resolutions to censor it when it meets next month.
Several other Republicans have faced similar reigns at home, including Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Fred Upton of Michigan and Tom Rice of South Carolina.
Sasse’s criticism of Trump is not the only complaint Republicans have against the senator. Some Republicans complain about his teacher style. Sasse is a graduate of Harvard and Yale and later was president of Midland University, a Christian school in eastern Nebraska. .
During his 2014 campaign, Sasse repeatedly said he identified more as a conservative than a Republican.
The sentiment appeared in the video Sasse posted on February 4th. He left behind angry members of the state GOP committee, not only with some of the committee, but with other Nebraska Republicans and, even more broadly, with Nebraska voters.
Purging “Trump skeptics” would be “terrible for our party,” he said, and appealed to refocus on shared conservative principles.
It’s a stain that could convince Lewis, the self-described moderate Democrat, to support Sasse on the national stage.
“I don’t agree with him all the time,” Lewis said. “But I agree with his principles and his willingness to say his opinion.”