LINCOLN - Charles Herbster personally bankrolled $4.7 million of the $4.9 million he raised last year in his bid for the GOP governor’s nomination.

His top primary opponent, Jim Pillen, gave his own campaign $1 million. But Pillen raised another $4.4 million from individual donors, for a total of $5.4 million.

It isn't often that a gubernatorial candidate self-funds their own campaign. The last was the current Gov. Pete Ricketts in 2006 when he ran against incumbent Sen. Ben Nelson.

Ricketts ultimately lost that race and, upon reflection, said that self-funding looks to many Nebraskans like "you're trying to buy the race," he told the Nebraska Examiner on Tuesday.

“Ultimately, that’s not a successful strategy,” said Ricketts, who endorsed Pillen last month. “You want to engage Nebraskans across the state to invest in your campaign. And clearly, Charles Herbster is not getting Nebraskans to invest in his campaign.”

Herbster has attempted to spin this in his favor and says that Nebraskans should see his personal contributions as financial independence from special interests.

“My time in this campaign is not spent fundraising, it’s spent learning about the people of Nebraska,” Herbster said in a statement. “For this reason, I am primarily self-funding this campaign. I refuse to let donors control my priorities or legislative agenda.”

Herbster raised $200,000 from individual donors in 2021, half of which came from out-of-state.

1393 donors contributed to Jim Pillen's campaign, 95% of which listed Nebraska addresses.

Out of the 7 republicans, only two others reported raising more than six figures last year. Omaha State Sen. Brett Lindstrom raised $1.6 million, much of which came from his ties to the Omaha tech industry.

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