Preston Love, (Liz Macias, Central Nebraska Today)
WASHINGTON D.C. — Preston Love is running for a two-year term to represent Nebraska in the United States Senate.
Love said he is a native Nebraskan, growing up and going to school in the Omaha area.
Love earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, where he also took part in football and track. Love earned his Master’s Degree in Professional Studies (M.P.S.) from Bellevue University, Omaha.
Love is the founder and executive director of Black Votes Matter Institute of Community Engagement, a nonprofit organization that helps to empower communities and promotes civic participation and engagement.
Love is also an adjunct professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha.
He helped to manage Jesse Jackson’s national presidential campaign in 1984 and also advised the mayors of both Atlanta and Chicago.
Love said he is running for Senate because, “I’ve seen, witnessed, and heard repeatedly, that privileged leadership does not work for the people. Currently Nebraska is a state where all its federal and state elected officials are dominated by one party. That doesn’t work for all of Nebraska. Neither urban nor greater rural Nebraska. Our respective communities have a multitude of disparities that are not being addressed by our current systems and one-party rule,” his campaign website stated.
Love is the highest profile Democrat running for the seat currently held by Senator Pete Ricketts who was appointed to the seat by Governor Jim Pillen after Sen. Ben Sasse resided to become the president of the University of Florida.
The seat will be up again in 2026 for the full six-year term.
In 2020, Nebraska Democrats moved to support Love’s write-in bid, rather than the Democratic nominee, Chris Janicek, who had been accused of mistreatment of former staff members.
Love earned six percent of the vote and his bid was the first by a Black Senate candidate backed by a majority party in a general election, according to the Nebraska Examiner.
When asked about his top priorities, Love said that his include, in no specific order, the fact that Nebraska has been effectively a one-party state under the Republican Party.
Love said he is by no means anti-Republican, but feels it is not beneficial for one party to control the state, year after year. “It doesn’t work well for all Nebraskans,” he said.
Other priorities he noted was a women’s right to choose for her own healthcare, public funds should not be used to support private schools, climate change, he said he is an advocate of organized labor and the rights of all Nebraskans, urban and rural together.
Love said he is opposed to restrictions on voting, including the need to procure and ID to vote. He said he feels this is the symptom of the one-party rule of Nebraska that little ways here and big ways there are being found to suppress voting.
He also disagrees with Nebraska being a winner-take-all state when it comes to the vote for President of the United States.
On the foreign relations side, Love said he supports Ukraine as it combats Russia’s invasion. As for the ongoing war in Israel, he said he does not take a side but feels that priority should be put on bringing relief to the people caught in the conflict.
Love said he wants the state’s federal delegation to be more responsive to the daily ongoings of the state and all the different issues, urban and rural both.
He noted that there is often the perception that the needs of rural and urban Nebraska are drastically different, but he has found there is often common ground.
Love said there should be an alternate voice in the federal delegation and wants to be an advocate for change based on what he is seeing in the state and want to dialogue with Republicans about what needs to happen.
In closing, Love says he has an enhanced resolve to become a senator for Nebraska and while he might be considered an underdog but that will not prevent him from seeking to make a change in the state.
Editor’s Note: Preston Love appeared on 1340 KGFW and this article was written using information provided during that interview. The full interview can be found here.
