On Monday in Grand Island, President Donald Trump campaigned for Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts as Nebraska cattle growers objected to his policy allowing lower-tariff imports of up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef. Trump said the imports would help cut grocery-store beef prices; ranchers said they would undercut domestic producers.
Ricketts, seeking his first full six-year Senate term against independent Dan Osborn, said, “The plan to import low-quality foreign beef is not helping Nebraska ranchers.” He urged the White House to change the policy and pursue longer-term steps to grow the cattle herd and lower prices for consumers.
Ranchers, voters and the campaign
Osborn, a former labor union chief, has held meetings in all 93 Nebraska counties and criticized Ricketts for skipping town halls. He told CNN that “the war in Iran and costs that are skyrocketing” marked a significant difference from his 2024 campaign. “It's tough,” he said about the cost of living, a topic that usually comes up first at his town halls.
“The president's coming to Nebraska to help me campaign, so I can get reelected,” Ricketts told The Associated Press. He also told CNN that high fuel prices strain Nebraska family budgets. Voters have pointed to high fuel and grocery costs, while Nebraska Democratic Party chairwoman Jane Kleeb said diesel had nearly doubled, export markets were drying up, rural hospitals were struggling and tariffs were hitting people’s pockets.
Ricketts took Sen. Ben Sasse's seat after Sasse left to run the University of Florida in 2023; voters later elected Ricketts to the seat. Ricketts served as Nebraska governor from 2015 to 2023. His family founded TD Ameritrade and owns Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs.
The national Democratic Party supports Osborn, who hasn’t said which party he would caucus with if elected. Nebraska Democrats picked Cindy Burbank as their nominee, but she campaigned on not siphoning votes from Osborn and later formally dropped out. Osborn ran against Republican Sen. Deb Fischer in 2024 and lost by fewer than 7 percentage points.
Trump's 32-day rally blitz covered Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ohio and Nebraska, states he carried by double digits, CNN reported. The Nebraska stop aimed to help Ricketts. Trump was expected to speak at 6 p.m. EDT at the Nebraska State Fairgrounds.
Public money and election power
During the 10 days covered in CNN's report, the administration ran more than a dozen government-funded ads promoting Trump and his claimed accomplishments. One aired during NFL games on Sept. 27 and drew on $20 million from the Department of Homeland Security. Another echoed an ad from Trump's 2024 campaign, warning of a “final battle” against the deep state, Marxists and other “villains.” The administration called the commercials public service announcements. Trump said they were “for the country.”
At the Republican Party's first-ever midterm convention last month, Trump promised $5,000 to every adult U.S. citizen if Republicans kept both the House and Senate. He repeated the proposal on social media and at rallies in Alabama and Oklahoma. The administration also started sending $500 Affordable Care Act rebate checks to nearly 1 million Americans in 30 states. On Oct. 2, Trump announced plans to send nearly $100 to more than 20 million seniors by diverting money from the $2 billion Medicare Improvement Fund; CNN reported that the planned payments would be $90 for about 20 million seniors to help pay Medicare Part B premiums.
The administration has also pursued election-rule changes. Courts blocked key provisions of Trump's voter-ID executive order, and the Supreme Court stopped the U.S. Postal Service from putting new mail-ballot rules in place for this election. Congress didn't pass his proposed voter-ID bill. The administration is investigating noncitizens registered to vote; Homeland Security Investigations official Matthew Millhollin said 160 people had been arrested as of mid-September.
The limits and the stakes
Voting advocates said the cases involved a small fraction of the population and accused the administration of sowing doubts about the election. Senate Democrats wrote to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that the administration's actions were “intentionally undermining Americans' trust in the 2026 midterm elections” and appeared to disenfranchise eligible voters.
David Becker, who runs the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the administration had faced blocks when it tried to enact policy. He called its election-case record a “remarkable record of failure,” and warned, “This should not be normalized.” Adav Noti of the Campaign Legal Center said nearly all the president's efforts to control election results were illegal, but the administration hasn't been deterred.
Trump's campaign aims to make the midterms a choice between the parties instead of a referendum on him and his administration. Republicans had a significant financial advantage in nearly every battleground state, while Democrats worried they couldn't match Republican spending on television advertising. Recent polling averages showed Democrats ahead in nine key Senate battlegrounds, and forecasts gave them a good chance of taking the House and possibly the Senate.