State Party Split Over Trump Ousts Leader

Chairman is voted out over complaints state party favored primary candidate
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 10, 2022 4:10 PM CDT
Nebraska Republicans Split Over Trump Change Leaders
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, left, greets Jim Pillen, Republican candidate for governor, at Republican state headquarters in May.   (Gwyneth Roberts/Lincoln Journal Star via AP)

A divided Republican Party in Nebraska, unable to agree on the party's direction or former President Trump, will try to mend with new leadership. Delegates to the state convention voted to remove Chairman Dan Welch on Saturday, the Omaha World-Herald reports, and most of the party's other leaders, including Executive Director Taylor Gage, then resigned. Welch had opened the convention earlier in the day with a call to "clear the air." Eric Underwood, the Lancaster County chairman who made the motions that brought the firing, will serve in the position for the rest of the year.

A wing of Trump supporters want to move the state party his way, but Welch blamed the split mostly on the gubernatorial primary fight—which reflects the Trump divisions. Welch said the state party stayed neutral in the race, but some Republicans charge that it helped Jim Pillen. Gov. Pete Ricketts, who is blocked from running again by term limits, and others in the party establishment endorsed Pillen, who won. Businessman Charles Herbster, who was Trump's choice, came in second and has declined so far to endorse Pillen. The convention gave welcomes to Pillen and Ricketts that were less enthusiastic than those afforded other speakers.

"The only thing I wish you knew was the real information," Welch told delegates before he was voted out, per the AP. Welch's detractors said their wing of the party has been excluded and ignored by Ricketts and other establishment leaders; Ricketts' support for Pillen included spending money on Pillen's behalf. The convention was scheduled to end in mid-afternoon but instead ran well into the evening, per the World-Herald. Under its new leadership, the party on Saturday night passed an elections resolution calling for ballots to be counted by hand under video surveillance. (More Nebraska stories.)

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