Pete Ricketts

Pete Ricketts Bio

John Peter Ricketts (born August 19, 1964), widely known as Pete Ricketts, is an American businessman and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Nebraska since 2023. A Republican, he previously served as the 40th governor of Nebraska from 2015 to 2023. The eldest son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, he is also a part owner of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs and was part of the organization when it won the 2016 World Series.

Ricketts first entered politics with an unsuccessful 2006 U.S. Senate run before winning the Nebraska governorship in 2014 and earning reelection in 2018. After his second gubernatorial term ended in January 2023, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Jim Pillen and went on to win the 2024 special election to complete the term. He has been a vocal figure on tax policy, abortion, gun rights, and U.S. foreign policy during his time in elected office.

Early Life and Background

Pete Ricketts was born in Nebraska City, Nebraska, on August 19, 1964. He is the oldest of four children born to Joe Ricketts and Marlene Volkmer Ricketts, and the family later settled in Omaha. His mother worked as a teacher, while his father built a career in finance by founding First Omaha Securities in 1975, one of the first discount stockbrokers in the United States. That firm eventually grew into Ameritrade, went public in 1997, and was rebranded as TD Ameritrade following its 2006 acquisition of TD Waterhouse.

Ricketts and his three siblings, Tom, Laura, and Todd, all attended Westside High School in Omaha, where Pete graduated in 1982. He then enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in biology in 1986. After a brief period away from academics, he returned to the university and completed a Master of Business Administration with a focus on marketing and finance in 1991. These formative years in Omaha and Chicago laid the foundation for his future work in both business and public service.

Path to US Politics

After finishing graduate school, Ricketts returned to Omaha and held a series of jobs outside his father’s firm. He worked for a year at the Union Pacific Railroad and later as a salesman for a Chicago-based environmental consultant. In 1993, he joined the family business, starting in the call center and rising through several executive roles before becoming chief operating officer during his father’s tenure as CEO. By 2006, he reported a personal net worth of between $45 million and $50 million.

Ricketts’s entry into politics came in 2006, when he won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Ben Nelson. He spent more than $11 million of his own money, the most of any Senate candidate in Nebraska history at the time, and received campaign support from President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. He ultimately lost to Nelson by a wide margin, 36% to 64%. Following the loss, he returned to Ameritrade’s board and in 2007 co-founded the Platte Institute for Economic Research, a free-market think tank based in Nebraska. From 2007 to 2012, he served as a national committeeman for the Republican National Committee.

Pete Ricketts Career

Early Career (2006–2014)

Ricketts’s political career formally began with the 2006 Senate race, in which he self-funded a high-profile but unsuccessful campaign. After returning to the private sector, he remained active in policy and party work through the Platte Institute and the Republican National Committee. He resigned from the Platte Institute in 2013 to focus on his next political move.

That same year, he began laying the groundwork for a gubernatorial run. Several potential Republican contenders, including Lieutenant Governor Rick Sheehy and Speaker Mike Flood, exited the race early, and Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning entered late, briefly becoming the perceived front-runner. Despite the late reshuffling, Ricketts positioned himself as a leading candidate heading into 2014.

2014 Gubernatorial Breakthrough (2014–2015)

Ricketts officially entered the Nebraska governor’s race in September 2013 and quickly became one of the leading candidates in a crowded Republican field. In the May 2014 primary, he finished first with 26.6% of the vote, narrowly edging Bruning at 25.5%, followed by Beau McCoy, Mike Foley, Tom Carlson, and Bryan Slone. Outspent by Ricketts by more than two-to-one in the general election, Democrat Chuck Hassebrook argued that Ricketts’s proposed tax cuts would primarily benefit the wealthy and deprive the state of funds for public services.

In the November 2014 general election, Ricketts defeated Hassebrook by a margin of 57.1% to 39.2%, with Libertarian Mark G. Elworth Jr. receiving 3.5%. He was inaugurated as Nebraska’s 40th governor at the State Capitol in Lincoln on January 8, 2015, becoming the state’s chief executive and beginning a tenure defined by tax cuts, social conservative priorities, and high-profile clashes with the legislature.

Governor Era (2015–2023)

During his two terms as governor, Ricketts signed legislation enacting $12.7 billion in tax cuts and pursued an aggressive conservative policy agenda. In 2015, his veto of a bill to repeal the death penalty was overridden by the legislature, but he later helped fund a successful 2016 referendum that reinstated capital punishment. The state carried out its first execution since 1997 in 2018, when Carey Dean Moore was put to death. Ricketts also championed property tax relief, signing LB 103 in 2019 to stop automatic property tax increases and growing the Property Tax Credit Relief Fund to $550 million.

He clashed with the legislature on several occasions, including vetoes of bills related to driver’s licenses for DACA recipients, redistricting, and felon voting rights. He also drew attention during the COVID-19 pandemic by threatening to withhold $100 million in federal relief from local governments that imposed mask requirements, and later ordering state agencies not to comply with federal vaccine mandates for employees. On social issues, Ricketts signed multiple anti-abortion bills, opposed medical cannabis legalization, and designated Nebraska as a sanctuary state for the Second Amendment. He was reelected on November 6, 2018, with 59.0% of the vote.

U.S. Senate Era (2023–Present)

Ricketts was sworn in as Nebraska’s junior U.S. senator on January 23, 2023, after being appointed by Governor Jim Pillen to fill the vacancy created by Ben Sasse’s resignation. He was the first member of his freshman Senate class to deliver a maiden speech, focusing on the theme that Nebraska is what America is supposed to be. In the Senate, he serves on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

He has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration on issues ranging from border security to climate policy, and has supported a tougher U.S. stance against China, Iran, and Russia. Among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, Ricketts cast his vote against the bill and later voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025. His early Senate work also included co-sponsoring legislation to permanently prohibit federal funding for abortion and to create federal felony murder charges for drug dealers whose fentanyl distribution leads to overdose deaths.

Notable Events and Milestones

One of the defining moments of Ricketts’s career came in 2016, when the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, ending a 108-year championship drought. As a part owner of the team since 2009, Ricketts shared in the title, a fact that has remained a notable biographical detail. In politics, his successful 2016 referendum to reinstate the death penalty in Nebraska and his role in overseeing the state’s first execution in more than two decades stand out as signature achievements.

Pete Ricketts Career Wins

Pete Ricketts has compiled a steady record of electoral wins at the state and federal levels, beginning with his 2014 gubernatorial victory and continuing through his 2024 Senate win. While his first Senate bid ended in defeat, his subsequent statewide campaigns have been decisive, often powered by strong personal fundraising and a consistent conservative platform.

Election Highlights

Ricketts first won a major-party nomination in 2006, when he captured the Republican Senate primary and then lost the general election to Ben Nelson by 28 points. He rebounded in 2014 by winning a six-way Republican gubernatorial primary with 26.6% of the vote and then defeating Democrat Chuck Hassebrook 57.1% to 39.2%. His most recent victory came in the 2024 special election, when he defeated Democrat Preston Love Jr. 62.6% to 37.4% to complete the remainder of Ben Sasse’s Senate term.

Other Wins and Achievements

Outside of his own elections, Ricketts has played a significant behind-the-scenes role in Republican politics. He contributed $250,000 in July 2022 to a political action committee opposing Eric Greitens’s U.S. Senate primary bid in Missouri. He also serves on the boards and committees of several influential policy organizations, including as a former trustee of the American Enterprise Institute, and remains a prominent voice on tax policy, social conservative causes, and U.S. foreign policy.

Pete Ricketts Family

Family Background and Political Lineage

Ricketts comes from a prominent business family. His father, Joe Ricketts, founded First Omaha Securities in 1975, which evolved into TD Ameritrade and made the family one of the wealthiest in Nebraska. His mother, Marlene Volkmer Ricketts, worked as a teacher. Ricketts has three siblings, Tom, Laura, and Todd, and is the eldest of the four children. The Ricketts family’s investment in the Chicago Cubs in 2009 connected the family to one of the most iconic franchises in American sports.

Personal Life

Ricketts married Susanne Shore in 1997. Shore, a native of Garden City, Kansas, grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and earned degrees from Oklahoma State University before working as a nurse in Omaha at the time of their marriage. A Democrat, she later earned Ricketts’s endorsement for a 2026 seat on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. Ricketts is Catholic and is a member of the Knights of Columbus and a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. The couple has three children.