BELLEVUE, Nebraska — Even as outside polling shows a competitive race for U.S. Senate in ruby-red Nebraska, Republican U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer remains adamant that her challenge from nonpartisan industrial mechanic Dan Osborn is a media-driven fabrication.

Fischer said reporters “wanted to see a race,” so they created one. Nebraskans, she said, know her record of getting results on national defense issues, funding roads, bridges and broadband and fighting profligate spending.

“He may put up these maps that he loves to show and ads and things that he’s been all over the state, and I supposedly have been nowhere,” she said of Osborn. “He’s being … disingenuous. I am always out in the state … listening to Nebraskans.”

Fischer’s frustrated tone belies her annoyance at needing help from local and national Republican groups to fend off the Omaha union leader. Osborn has had help from some national Democrats, Libertarians and local Legal Marijuana NOW Party members in his upstart campaign.

Fischer brings reinforcements

On the last weekend before Election Day on Tuesday, Fischer brought in reinforcements including Arkansas’ Sen. Tom Cotton, her seat neighbor on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Army veteran contended during a Saturday visit that Fischer had seen a tough race coming all along.

Some Republicans have questioned whether Fischer’s campaign grew complacent, despite the GOP’s 2-to-1 advantage over Democrats and a significant bloc of nonpartisan voters.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which typically focuses spending in swing states, has taken the unusual step of investing millions to help Fischer in right-leaning Nebraska. 

On Sunday, Fischer rejoined a statewide barnstorming tour with Nebraska’s all-GOP congressional delegation aimed at shoring up Republican support for Fischer and 2nd District GOP U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, who typically faces close races in the Omaha area.

At a stop Sunday in Omaha, U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb, a longtime friend of Fischer’s, described Osborn as a “fraud that’s being perpetrated on Nebraskans” and said the state’s voters needed to put him out of a job Tuesday.

He was referencing Osborn’s decision to pay himself from campaign funds during the race.

Osborn, at rallies of his own Sunday in Omaha and Lincoln, pledged to serve only two terms in the Senate if elected, calling term limits “an anti-corruption measure.” He reminded voters that Fischer had pledged the same and was running for a third term anyway.

Fischer told the Examiner that she learned the importance of seniority in the Senate after serving and that the state has benefited from her experience.

Fischer said there was nothing she would have done differently about her race. She largely ignored Osborn for months, sitting on a campaign war chest while he built unexpected momentum and raised funds. Fischer’s allies said she missed a chance to define her challenger early in ads.

“I’d like to know who they are,” Fischer said of her campaign’s Republican critics. 

Cotton defended her Saturday, saying, “Deb was working hard, taking no votes for granted, cautioning people about the playbook that (Senate Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer was running.”

Osborn’s rise

Osborn, an Omaha union leader who has drawn blue-collar crowds from Scottsbluff to Omaha, surprised many with his sharp TV ads and willingness to anger leaders in the Nebraska Democratic Party to reinforce his relative independence.

He courted the endorsement of Nebraska Democrats for months before saying immediately after the primary that he didn’t want any party’s backing. Some of his supporters also joined third parties and worked to prevent them from nominating other candidates for the ballot. 

Some of his supporters indicated this was an organized strategy. If third parties ran candidates on the general election ballot, that could split the vote more, instead of having a contest between Fischer and Osborn alone. 

Osborn has built his brand with support from organized labor and progressive donors who suggest that a nonpartisan label could make popular progressive policies more viable in red states.

Fischer has called Osborn’s campaign “a political science experiment,” a jab that Osborn has embraced. He has told supporters at many of his town hall stops that many of the best ideas in American governance started that way. 

“I’m just a worker for workers,” Osborn said. “There’s a lot of messaging out there, but at the end of the day, that’s why I’m here.”

Mistakes by Osborn supporters

Fischer has capitalized on late mistakes by some outside groups and people considering helping Osborn now that they’ve helped him make it a contest, including a super PAC that typically backs Democrats and Schumer.  

Fischer’s campaign pointed to a text from the left-leaning super PAC saying he would align with Democrats in the Senate if he is elected. Osborn has said he won’t caucus with either party if elected, a stance he reiterated in a recent sit-down with the Nebraska Examiner. 

He has said this will give him leverage enough in a divided Senate to get the committee assignments Nebraska needs. Fischer has called that naive and said he would not be treated well by either party. She also contends he would caucus with the left. 

“Her opponent, though, is a little bit different kind of guy than I’ve seen,” Cotton said of Osborn. “I’d say it’s a curious kind of independent who is using the Democrats’ fundraising machine to raise millions of dollars from out of state.”

Money flows in

Osborn has benefited from roughly $20 million in outside spending on his behalf, either supporting his bid or bashing Fischer, campaign finance forms show. GOP-aligned outside groups have come in with about $9 million for Fischer.

The two campaigns have each raised nearly $8 million, as well, record hauls for Fischer and for a first-time challenger not named Pete Ricketts, Nebraska’s junior senator who put millions of his own money into his first Senate race in the mid-2000s.

Osborn’s campaign in October reported raising $3.3 million, a record quarter for any modern Nebraska Senate race. Fischer raised nearly $1 million in the same period. Osborn’s campaign said he had raised another $3.1 million since the start of the fourth quarter. 

Much of that came as a slew of national and internal polls from both campaigns started showing a closer-than-expected race, and a handful showed Osborn with a slight lead. They showed Osborn receiving significant support from some Republicans. 

Fischer campaign responds

Fischer’s team cut an ad recently with former President Donald Trump. Her campaign started airing and sharing the ad digitally in conservative circles to help consolidate her support from the GOP base, which moved numbers her way.

Most local political observers still expect Fischer to win, perhaps by a wider margin than national polling shows. But some leave open the possibility of a close finish or even an upset, and that has motivated Democrats and nonpartisan voters who want to break the GOP hold on the state’s delegation.

Fischer is running ads on Osborn’s statements backing a legal path to citizenship for immigrant workers if they have lived in the U.S. for decades. The ads say he supports giving Social Security benefits to people who are in the country illegally, pointing to a recent interview he gave.

Osborn says the ads are twisting his words. He said he is talking about Nebraskans’ friends and neighbors who pay into Social Security through their paychecks and get no benefit. They’ve helped shore up the system for other workers and should have a legal path to citizenship, he said.

“It’s the fact that our immigration system is broken,” Osborn said. “People that have been living here, working here, that are not criminals, they’ve raised families in communities. It’s fixing the immigration system so they can get legal status.”

Osborn talks issues

Osborn, a Navy veteran, said Fischer ran for the Senate saying she was going to fix the immigration system and then was part of the group that tanked a bipartisan immigration bill because Trump urged them to do so. 

Dan Osborn, nonpartisan

“We’ve got to start somewhere,” Osborn said. “If it fell short, it fell short. But at least the American people will know that Congress is doing something. This is one of the most ineffective Congresses in history.”

He says he would support policies that make it easier for people to join unions and to advocate for better pay and benefits. He says he won’t take special interest dollars and won’t let donors influence his decisions.

He touts his union support from the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers, which held a major rally for him in Lincoln that turned heads when Republican State Sen. Mike McDonnell, another Omaha labor leader, joined him on stage and applauded his bid.

Fischer pushes back on rancher attack ad

Fischer has some union support as well, particularly from public safety unions representing state and local police officers and troopers and firefighters and paramedics. She also amplifies her backing from farm and ranching groups.

U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.

Fischer took issue with Osborn’s push to call her a “fake rancher.” Her family owns a ranch near Valentine, Nebraska, where she was a school board member.

Her campaign rallied last week in Herman, Nebraska, with the Nebraska Farm Bureau, the Nebraska Cattlemen and a number of her farm and ranch supporters who argued that she has listened to their needs and is a voice they want on the farm bill.

Both candidates sat down this spring with the Examiner’s political podcast, Picking Corn, and talked about a number of issues, including the need to support allies like Israel and Ukraine with American weapons. 

Both said they want to protect American service members. Fischer talked again this weekend about how she worked with Bacon to secure funding for a new runway at Offutt Air Force Base, as well as flood repairs and flood-fighting levees.

Both Fischer and Osborn said they want the next farm bill to include improved versions of crop insurance. 

Osborn has talked about the need to raise the cap on income subject to the Social Security tax, so millionaires and billionaires would pay more into the program. Fischer has said she would cut the federal tax on Social Security benefits.

Douglas County Commissioner Jim Cavanaugh, a Democrat, said Osborn was the right candidate “to preserve and improve Social Security” and criticized Fischer for previously discussing the potential of raising the Social Security retirement age for younger workers.

Fischer has said that retirees rely on the program and that it needs to be protected.

Bacon and Fischer’s other defenders repeated a hook from her stump speech, that Fischer is a work horse and not a show horse.

Osborn has said her campaign is kicking a dead horse and needs to be put out to pasture.