Nebraska Sen. Cess created a political future on Trump’s opposition



Omaha, Nab. (AP) – When Ben Sass Heard that the GOP in Nebraska. Activists aimed to censor Donald Trump for his inadequate support, but the Republican senator did not try to talk to him. Instead, he punched first.

The five-minute video was posted on Facebook and YouTube, “Cult of personality” and “behaving like politics is religion.”

The expectation of Nebraskans from his junior senator – and the approach he has come to appreciate – is an unforgivable approach, which is probably cultivating more Trumpism as his brand than any other emerging Republican leader.

Cess said Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud were “false” and that on January 6, Trump “provoked the mob that attacked the Capitol” while Congress was voting to ensure victory in Beden’s election. Cess is likely to be part of a smaller group of Republicans who voted to convict Trump of sedition during the impeachment hearing. Conclusion.

Republican Nebraska has plenty of activists over Sass’s criticism of Trump. But Saas also gains a little respect for speaking his mind despite being vague, a trait that some Republicans reminded him of as a former president.

“I want to tell him what he sees and what he’s thinking,” said Tracy Feckler, owner of the Omaha Auto Repair Shop. Like many people across the state, he said he voted for Trump for the same reason.

Sesan, who was elected for a second six-year term last year, doesn’t need to worry too much about the outcome of his anti-Trump campaign in a state where Trump won by 18 percentage points in November. Sass’s more immediate threat is how his vote on impeachment will go with Republicans if he runs for president in 2024.

Of the Republican senators who have sided with Democrats on the impeachment, only 48-year-old Sassin is still considered high-ranking optimist. In fact, he is betting that there is a political future in trying to fight for the return of the established Republican Party.

“We still agree on some big things,” he said in the video, referring to his party’s often-promoted values ​​before Trump. “The rule of law. Constitutionalism. Limited government.”

Even in Nebraska, Sass has a market for what he thinks he sells.

He won about 27,000 more votes than Trump in the state, proving to be better at leading GOP voters and winning over Democrats. Twenty-one percent of Nebraska Democrats supported Cess, while only 4 percent supported Trump, according to the AP Votecast, a poll of voters. Meanwhile, 7% of Republicans voted for Biden, while Republic% of Republicans voted for Sassena’s challenger, Democrat Chris Janicek.

Senny benefited from Janicek’s abuse. But compulsive people also showed strength in the swing-voting neighborhood of suburban Omaha, places that look like those presidential battlefield-state suburbs where Trump lost ground last year.

“I think he’s just a man who stands up for common principles and values, and doesn’t go along with Trump,” said Mike Lewis, a 56-year-old real estate agent in South Omaha and a registered Democrat for years. Call yourself moderator. “I believe he is a man of morals and principles, and not of the party line.”

It’s a diverse, old, first-ring suburb of neighborhoods and small businesses – Milwaukee, or St. Paul, working out of Minneapolis and unlike the pockets of middle-class voters. Omaha’s once-developing stockyards are just a mile east. And steam rises from Nebraska beef and other small meatballs.

A few blocks away, cutting snow off his sidewalk, Feckler also praised Cess for “speaking his pieces.”

“What he said was not popular because of what he said. Everyone else walks around with cat’s feet, and that’s what he said, “said Claire, adding that Sassi and Trump were ambiguous voters until 2014, two years apart. “You’re making a lot of criticisms when you party.”

A block away, Leia Fontanelle placed an issue on her front steps next to the fab color.

The 65-year-old retired medical supplies director, who voted for Trump, said, “I want someone to speak his mind rather than bow to the party.” “The party doesn’t speak for everyone.”

But its elected officials should represent the party’s views, Colin Woodward said.

450 miles to the west, Scots Bluff County G.O.P. The chair erupted in anger with Sassi in mid-January, after which the senator said Trump had consistently lied, claiming that he had won the election by landslide – and was the then president. ‘During the siege of the capital he performed his duty to defend the Constitution and uphold the rule of law.

“He has publicly expressed his hatred of President Trump. That’s not what Nebraska thinks, “said Woodward. She described Sisi as “oh, just as disrespectful to the former president.”

The other three county G.O.P. Committees have voted to censor the cess. The state’s Republican Central Committee is expected to consider at least eight different resolutions rejecting it when it meets next month.

Several other Republicans have faced similar losses at home, including Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Fred Upton of Michigan and Tom Rice of South Carolina.

Trump’s criticism of the Republican senator is not the only complaint. Some Republicans gossip about their business style. Cess graduated from Harvard and Yale, and was then president of the University of Midland, a Christian school in eastern Nebraska. Did not take. .

During his 2014 campaign, Sase repeatedly said he was more conservative than a Republican.

This sentiment was realized in a video released by Sesse Feb Feb. He slammed the angry state GOP. The committee members stepped in not only on the committee but with other Republicans in Nebraska and more precisely Nebraska voters.

He described the role as “Trump skeptical” as “terrible for our party” and called for attention to shared conflicting principles.

It is a practice that could persuade the self-described moderate Democrat Lewis to step down 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 speak his mind.”

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