The 2020 United States Senate election in Nebraska was held on November 3, 2020, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Nebraska, concurrently with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate, elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
Incumbent Republican Senator Ben Sasse was challenged by Democratic nominee Chris Janicek, who was disavowed by his party after numerous scandals; by write-in candidate Preston Love Jr., who received the support of the state Democratic Party; and by Libertarian nominee Gene Siadek.
Sasse won election to a second term with 62.7% of the vote and a 38.3% margin. He outperformed President Donald Trump by almost 27,000 votes, or 8.9%, compared to the concurrent presidential election, the largest overperformance by any Republican US Senate candidate in the country that year. Trump won the state by 19.05%. In contrast, Janicek was the worst performing Democratic Senate candidate in the country compared to Joe Biden, underperforming him by 13.1%. This was attributed to a sexual misconduct scandal affecting Janicek and split-ticket voting in Omaha suburbs.
On June 16, 2020, Janicek lost the support of the Nebraska Democratic Party after allegations surfaced of sending sexually explicit text messages about a female campaign staff member and allegedly using racist slurs to insult a guest at a party 20 years prior. Nonetheless, Janicek refused to drop out of the race and his name remained on the ballot in the general election. In September the state Democratic party supported Preston Love Jr. via a write-in candidacy.
Official campaign websites