The Ricketts family donates millions to Nebraska campaigns. They aren't the top donors. – Flatwater Free Press

Despite their massive giving, Pete Ricketts and wife Susanne Shore are only Nebraska’s second-largest donors of the past quarter century. Joe and Marlene Ricketts rank third.

In first: Charles and Judith Herbster, who’ve spent at least $15.1 million, according to Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission data.

While the Herbsters gave some of that money to candidates for the Legislature and other offices, the vast majority – all but roughly $720,000 – went toward Charles Herbster’s two unsuccessful campaigns for governor and his preferred candidate, Beau McCoy, after Herbster dropped out of the 2014 race.

“I work hard for my money and I do not just throw it around without a lot of consideration,” Herbster said in a statement. “My donations come with no strings attached. I do my homework and support good candidates who I trust to do what is right.”

His high percentage of self-funding leaves the Rickettses as the family that has, by a wide margin, spent the most money in the 21st century broadly funding Nebraska political campaigns and causes.

U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts and wife Susanne Shore have given at least a combined $7.9 million. Almost all of it came from Ricketts. Shore has given comparatively small amounts, mostly to Democrats.

In several cases, the two funded candidates on opposite sides of the same race – like in the Lincoln mayor’s race between former Republican state Sen. Suzanne Geist and incumbent Democrat Leirion Gaylor Baird. Shore gave Gaylor Baird $40,000. Ricketts gave $150,000 to Geist and $300,000 to a PAC that supported her and attacked Gaylor Baird.

Joe and Marlene Ricketts have given at least $4.5 million, according to NADC records. 

They’ve made some contributions together, and some as individuals. Over a million of it went to their son’s gubernatorial campaign committee, but they too have put hundreds of thousands toward ballot measures, PACs and other races. The largest single contribution – $1.5 million from Marlene – funded a successful initiative to require a photo ID to vote in Nebraska.

The Flatwater Free Press analyzed public NADC records dating back to 1995. However, Nebraska didn’t have meaningful contribution sums reported electronically until 1999. (To learn more about how the Flatwater Free Press analyzed campaign finance data, read the “How We Did It” explainer.)

Available filings show there’s no comparison to the breadth and volume of the Ricketts family’s spending in public campaign finance records in recent Nebraska history.

Some political observers noted that it may be, in part, because races now cost more to win. John Hibbing, a longtime political scientist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, partially credits a shifting American political culture that became more polarized during Ricketts’ tenure.

“Imagine a world in which Pete Ricketts had not come on the scene politically in Nebraska,” Hibbing said. “I still think we’d be having a conversation about the intense fights in the … allegedly nonpartisan unicameral. It’s just that … there might not have been the financial resources that were controlled by one particular person to exacerbate those splits.”

After the Ricketts family, the state’s list of top 20 political donors of the last two decades features familiar names of all political stripes.

“Maybe the reason people are so focused on what Pete Ricketts did as governor is because of the size of the gifts,” said Bud Synhorst, former director of the Nebraska Republican Party. “However, there are plenty of mega donors that give to Democratic candidates and Democratic causes.”

The late Dick Holland follows Joe and Marlene Ricketts – he gave about $2.3 million, mostly to Democratic causes. Daughter Andy Holland, who has been active in the state Democratic Party, gave about $110,000.

Next on the list are Michigan Republicans Dick and Betsy DeVos, who gave most of their nearly $2.3 million to a national school choice organization that poured money into a Nebraska PAC supporting Republican legislative candidates and opposing Democrats. Betsy DeVos served as President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education.

Walter and Suzanne Scott gave at least $2.2 million. No other donor cracks $2 million in available data, though there are several notable Nebraska names, including current Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, Democrats Barbara and Wally Weitz – Barbara Weitz serves as a University of Nebraska Regent – and rising Republican donor Tom Peed. (Editor’s note: Wally Weitz serves on the board of the Nebraska Journalism Trust, FFP’s parent nonprofit, and the Weitz Family Foundation is a donor.)

Flatwater Free Press did not include contributions from their businesses – for example, Peeds’ Sandhills Global or Herbster’s Conklin Company – in this analysis, and didn’t include giving from TD Ameritrade in its analysis of the Ricketts family’s giving.

It’s also worth noting that some organizations aren’t required to disclose their donors, whose money is then funneled to candidates and causes in Nebraska.

One example: The left-leaning Sixteen Thirty Fund has given at least $6.3 million in Nebraska in the last two decades. That’s the second-highest sum for an organization, after Ho-Chunk Inc., the corporation started by the Winnebago Tribe. (Editor’s note: Ho-Chunk Inc., is a sponsor of Flatwater Free Press.)