Nebraska state legislator and Valentine rancher Deb Fischer has beat the odds to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.
She credits her win to a campaign in which she put 45,000 miles on her car traveling rural Nebraska.
Friends and political strategists say Fischer's success is a
combination of hard campaigning in some of Nebraska's most isolated hamlets, her appeal as a conservative rancher and a flood of
outside money that paid for ads against her GOP opponent.
Political science professor Paul Landow cites the more than $1 million spent by outside groups as decisive in the race.
The toughest political challenge still awaits Fischer. She'll have to knock off popular former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey to win the seat, which would be a major national pickup for Republicans.