Another Republican who stood up to Donald Trump is on his way out of Congress, with the news that the Nebraska senator Ben Sasse is set to become president of the University of Florida.
Of the 10 House Republicans and seven senators who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, for inciting the January 6 Capitol attack, only two congressmen and four senators are on course to return after the midterm elections.
High-profile casualties include Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the House January 6 committee vice-chair who lost her primary to a Trump-backed challenger in August.
Like Cheney, Sasse, 50, has been thought a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination, a notional 2024 contest still dominated by Trump.
The senator does not have to face voters again until 2026. But on Thursday Rahul Patel, a member of the University of Florida board of trustees, told the Tampa Bay Times the college needed “a visionary, an innovator and big thinker who would differentiate us from others – a leader who is transformational. The committee unanimously felt Ben Sasse is a transformational leader.”
Sasse decried “Washington partisanship” and called Florida “the most interesting university in America right now”.
A university president before he entered politics, at Midland in Nebraska, Sasse will in November be the sole candidate interviewed for the Florida position.
If he resigns as a senator, the Nebraska governor – the Republican Pete Ricketts, or a likely Republican successor if Sasse resigns in January – will appoint a replacement.
NBC News reported that Sasse’s move was the result of Republican rivalries. Quoting “a top Republican insider”, the outlet said the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, was behind the move, which was meant as one in the eye for Trump.
Marc Caputo, a reporter, wrote: “In May, Trump said he regretted supporting Ben Sasse. Now, DeSantis’s man at UF has engineered Sasse’s hiring. ‘Everyone knows what this is about: Ron and Don,’ a top Republican insider tells me, echoing others.”
As the only Republican who polls even close to Trump, DeSantis is widely thought to be planning a presidential run of his own.
Ricketts, the Nebraska governor, is from the family behind the stockbroker TD Ameritrade and a former co-owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. He made headlines in June 2020, amid national protests for racial justice, when he apologised for calling Black leaders “you people”.
The Ricketts family has ties to DeSantis. On Friday, in messages viewed by the Guardian, a Trump insider said the Sasse move was “about Ricketts money to DeSantis. This is what Pete wanted so he can appoint himself to the Senate.”
In a statement, Ricketts said he learned about Sasse’s planned resignation on Thursday, “when he called to notify me”.
He added: “If I choose to pursue the appointment, I will leave the appointment decision to the next governor and will follow the process established for all interested candidates. It is the honor of a lifetime to serve as the governor of Nebraska. It is the greatest job in the world, and it will remain my number one focus for the remainder of my term.”
Sasse was elected to the Senate in 2014 and emerged as a critic of Trump and his effect on US politics when the billionaire ran for the White House two years later. Sasse called Trump a “megalomaniac strongman” and said he would not vote for him or his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Sasse’s wife, Melissa, said her husband had “a need for competition. Also he’s an idiot.”
From 2017 to 2021, Sasse voted with Trump more than 85% of the time. He voted to acquit in Trump’s first impeachment trial, for blackmailing Ukraine for political dirt.
Nevertheless, in November 2020 Sasse claimed: “I’ve never been on the Trump train.”
In February 2021, Sasse said he voted to convict Trump over the Capitol attack because he had “promised to speak out when a president – even of my own party – exceeds his or her powers”. Such words earned him his share of Trumpian abuse, including a nickname, “Liddle Ben Sasse”.
In 2018, Sasse wrote a book, Them, in which he lamented political polarisation. He wrote: “We are in a period of unprecedented upheaval. Community is collapsing, anxiety is building, and we’re distracting ourselves with artificial political hatreds. That can’t endure. And if it does, America won’t.”
On Thursday, the Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin had a suggestion for what Sasse might do next.
“Why not join Liz Cheney to campaign against GOP election liars/deniers. It might even impress his new employers. Otherwise his Senate career has been a total nothing burger.”
