Nebraskans are discussing a third-party run by their senator, Ben Sasse, after a Sunday Washington Post/ABC News poll revealed an unprecedented amount of dislike for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Fifty-seven percent of those polled had an unfavorable view of Trump and Clinton. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday also showed Trump and Clinton neck-and-neck for unfavorability, at 58 percent and 54 percent respectively.
The unpopularity of both frontrunners is fueling local discussion about a potential Sasse run. KETV Omaha cited The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol to evidence parallel beltway dialogue over the Nebraska senator’s run.
“If you have a debate with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and let’s just say someone like an articulate senator like Sen. Ben Sasse, I think all bets are off,” Kristol said on Sunday.
Sasse has stood firm against Trump, calling him a “megalomaniac strongman” in December and writing an open letter against him in February, as well as another in May. He has also suggested the need for a third-party candidate.
“I don’t think you’re gonna have two choices of two dishonest New York liberals. I think there will be more people in play,” Sasse told NPR. However, the senator has repeatedly denied a potential run.
“Sen. Sasse had said multiple times that he is not interested,” Sasse’s office wrote in a May statement to KETV Omaha. “He’s got three little kids and the only job he wants: raising them and serving Nebraskans. Nothing has changed.”
Nebraskan Trump supporters like state senator Beau McCoy have also rebuffed a potential Sasse third-party run.
“I just don’t think that’s going to happen. We are a two-party system here in the United States,” McCoy, chairman of the Nebraska Trump campaign, told KETV Omaha. “I just know that I am committed to supporting our nominee.”
