Two new political parties in Nebraska, both accused of being disingenuous attempts to shave off votes from other candidates this November, have successfully collected enough signatures to form.
Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen announced Friday, Aug. 7, that his office sent letters to organizers for both the Nebraska Working People Party (NWPP) and the America First Party (AFP), notifying them that each had submitted enough valid signatures to form a new party.
Each party needed 6,728 valid signatures from registered voters among all three congressional districts to qualify.
Both prospective parties launched their petition efforts this summer, with NWPP starting signature collection first in late June and AFP starting the following week. Both campaigns submitted their signatures before the July 15 deadline.
Now, each party has 20 calendar days—deadline: Aug. 27—to submit an official party constitution, set of bylaws, and list of officers with Evnen’s office. If either party misses this deadline, they will not be certified as a new political party.
But if certified, both parties would be able to nominate candidates for US House and Senate in Nebraska, bypassing a standard primary election and adding new names to the Nov. 3 ballot.
The deadline for these new parties to file candidates for the general election ballot is Sept. 1 at 5 p.m.
Evnen’s deadline to certify the general election ballot is Sept. 11.
Pointing fingers
Before any ink could dry on petition papers, Nebraska political observers were already speculating about who was behind these new parties—and whether their intentions were honest or cynical.
Party officials on both sides have accused each other of using the new, evocatively named parties to mislead voters: progressive voters in the case of NWPP and conservative voters in the case of AFP.
Their inclusion on the ballot this fall could affect several statewide races. But Democrats and Republicans alike have cast the new parties as cynical attempts to meddle in one contest in particular: Nebraska’s U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Pete Ricketts and independent challenger Dan Osborn.
In a past statement, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb minced no words in accusing NWPP of being tied to Ricketts, saying it should be redubbed the “Working for Ricketts Party.”
A number of progressive organizations also publicly denounced NWPP while it collected signatures. The nationally known Working Families Party—which does not have an official presence in Nebraska—said it was weighing legal its options.
In kind, Mary Jane Truemper, chair of the Nebraska Republican Party, called AFP an attempt by state Democrats and “Osborn associates” to “trick conservative voters.”
‘Political games’
True intentions aside, Nebraska’s political arena mirrors the nation’s: Republicans and Democrats hold entrenched advantages, while alternative political options often struggle to gain traction. In close races, that means additional candidates—or the absence of them—can potentially affect the outcome.
Those candidates are often referred to as “spoilers” when their presence on the ballot could reasonably affect which major candidate wins. That is the accusation now being traded over the creation of NWPP and AFP in Nebraska.
Publicly known ties connected to each party have only deepened suspicions that the efforts are about something other than representing working-class Nebraskans or prioritizing American interests.
NWPP’s official sponsor is Robin Richards, a Ralston Public Schools board member and perennial candidate for the Nebraska Legislature.
While Richards is a registered Democrat, after she lost her bid for the legislature this year, she endorsed incumbent state Sen. Merv Riepe, a registered Republican in Nebraska’s technically nonpartisan one-house legislature, over her party’s nominee Christy Knorr.
According to sources familiar with the matter who believe Richards’ involvement is in bad faith, the effort highlights an intraparty conflict, where some disagree with the party’s US Senate race strategy of yielding to a party outsider—Independent Dan Osborn—to try and unseat an incumbent Republican.
Kleeb has described the party’s choice to not field a candidate in Osborn’s race as a “principled decision” and summarized the gambit as supporting “a coalition of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans to beat Ricketts and break up the one-party rule.”
AFP’s official sponsor is less mysterious to cynics of the whole debacle: John Cartier, the current attorney general for the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska and a former Democratic candidate for the Lincoln Public Schools Board. Cartier has supported progressive policy efforts and engaged in high-profile legal fights with Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, a Republican.
NWPP’s branding, which evokes the kind of working-class politics central to Osborn’s campaign, has not been well received by the state’s organized labor leaders.
In a letter signed by 15 local union officials, Richards was encouraged to reconsider the effort and told the party’s founding would be a “disaster for working people in Nebraska.” If the party is formed, labor groups warned they would “campaign relentlessly” against any candidates involved.
Reached by Courier Nebraska on Friday, Mike Gage, president of the Nebraska AFL-CIO and one of the highest profile names on the letter, said NWPP has still made no contact with any Nebraska labor organizations and refused multiple invitations to meet.
“Given the standoffish nature of the party organizer, the Nebraska State AFL-CIO is gravely suspicious of the motives of this party,” Gage said.
Courier Nebraska reached out to NWPP and AFP officials for comment on their signature qualification but has not received a response as of publication.
