(Picture credit Robin Richards)
The Nebraska Working People Party has had a three-candidate slate verified by the Secretary of State’s Office, filing on the last day new-party candidates could qualify for the November ballot. The America First Party also submitted its own ticket on Tuesday.
Robin Richards of Ralston, who filed the petition to form the party in June and serves as its chair, will run for U.S. Senate. She joins a field that already includes independent Dan Osborn, Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts, and Legal Marijuana NOW nominee Mike Marvin, who has endorsed Osborn.
Macey Budke of North Platte will run for Congress in the 3rd District. Budke, a behavioral health practice manager and lifelong Nebraskan, had been campaigning as a nonpartisan and later as a write-in after saying she would not hit the independent-petition signature threshold. She holds master’s degrees in psychology and health-care administration and has centered her campaign on rural health care, education, and agriculture.
Paul Rumbaugh will run for secretary of state, joining Republican Scott Petersen, Democrat Sarah Slattery, and America First Party candidate Bob Krist, the former state senator who filed Tuesday.
Party Shake-Up
The filings come after a turbulent few days inside the new party. Treasurer Vincent Rukstalis resigned last week, writing that he had signed on only to help Papillion mayoral candidate Joe Hunter and objecting that the party had moved into a federal Senate race with little transparency about its funding. Hunter, listed as vice chair after leaving the Democratic Party last week, also stepped down from that role on his campaign’s Facebook page. Richards accepted Rukstalis’s resignation the same day.
The Nebraska Democratic Party and the national Working Families Party had sued to block the Working People Party, arguing its name was too similar to the Working Families Party and would confuse voters. A Lancaster County District Court judge dismissed the objections as untimely, and the Nebraska Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that ruling on August 26, clearing the way for certification and today’s candidate filings.
On Twitter, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb had already framed the expected filings with questions about their funding sources behind them:
“The only thing the media should be asking is who is funding their operations. It took at least a million to get on the ballot. Their officers don’t have that type of money. Their goal is to split the Dem vote. Who do you think wants to do that?”
Secretary of State Bob Evnen has until Sept. 11 to certify the general-election ballot.
— Matt Johnson is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel.