Ben Sasse is likely to accept a job as the president of the University of Florida and resign his Senate seat in the near future, according to two people familiar with the Nebraska Republican’s plans.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts would then appoint a replacement for Sasse under state law, with the seat then up for a special election in 2024.
The University of Florida confirmed Sasse’s plans in a press release Thursday that announced him as the sole finalist for the position. Given the length of the search process, the exact timing of his future resignation is up in the air.
“The University of Florida is the most interesting university in America right now,” Sasse said. “It’s the most important institution in the nation’s most economically dynamic state — and its board, faculty and graduates are uniquely positioned to lead this country through an era of disruption.”
The second-term Sasse made a name for himself as a consistent Donald Trump critic in Congress as well as a reliable conservative vote. His resignation comes as a surprise after he ran for reelection in 2020 and given his status within the GOP as a potential future presidential candidate. Sasse was one of seven GOP senators to vote to convict the former president during Trump’s second impeachment trial, after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Sasse has been interested in an academic job for quite some time, according to Republicans familiar with his future plans. Ahead of his 2020 run, there was speculation he would seek an open position to lead the University of Nebraska; prior to running for Senate he was president of Midland University.
In recent years he’s maintained a relatively low profile in the Senate, while expressing frustration with the chamber and politics more broadly. A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sasse recently attended Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s investiture ceremony despite voting against her nomination.
In a statement shortly after, Sasse said he wouldn’t attack the credibility of the court and wished “more of my colleagues would take a similar approach.”
“America doesn’t work when partisans try to burn down our institutions,” he said.
Some details of Sasse’s future were first reported by a former aide, Ian Swanson, who has his own show on 1110 KFAB.