Opinion | How an independent candidate put Nebraska Republicans on the ropes

As voters in Nebraska head to the polls, Dan Osborn, an upstart independent challenger to Republican Sen. Deb Fischer, has a chance to pull off the most shocking upset of the 2024 campaign. According to a recent New York Times poll, he is a mere 2 points behind Fischer, and other surveys show him within striking distance.

If he wins, he could help keep the Senate out of Republican control. Yet national Democrats want nothing to do with Osborn — and that’s just fine with him. In what might be the most fascinating race this year, Osborn has run a truly independent campaign against a Republican incumbent — and steadfastly distanced himself from the Democratic Party.

The reason isn’t hard to figure out. As Ari Kohen, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska, told me, “If Dan were a Democrat, he’d be losing by 20 points.”

Barry Rubin, president of Heartland Strategy Group and former executive director of the Nebraska Democratic Party, shares Kohen’s view. A “D” next to the candidate’s name is a “Scarlet Letter in the western part of the state,” where Republicans traditionally dominate, says Rubin.

Osborn has steadfastly refused to say which party he would caucus with if elected. But if the Senate is 50 Republicans to 49 Democrats after Election Day (and Democrats win the White House), Osborn could be the deciding vote on Senate control — and, in short measure, the most powerful politician in Washington. 

Due to the state’s GOP lean and the presence of former President Donald Trump at the top of the ticket, the smart money is on Fischer to pull out a win. But Osborn’s remarkable campaign in a consistently Republican state offers a tantalizing possibility for Democrats: Has he cracked the code for how a progressive candidate can run a competitive race in red-state America?

Because while Osborn has eschewed Democratic support, he is running on a progressive policy platform heavy on economic populism. In September, Trump endorsed Fischer and called Osborn “a Bernie Sanders Democrat” — a claim that, in many respects, isn’t far off.  

On his campaign website, Osborn attacks “private equity companies,” calls for ending “subsidies to super-profitable pharmaceutical companies” and vows to protect Social Security. He rails against the “millionaire and billionaire class that are inoculated from the very laws that they make” and recently told The New York Times, “We’re at the apex of a corporate-run government.’’

He also supports raising the minimum wage and corporate taxes and has made passing the PRO Act, a top priority of labor unions, a centerpiece of his policy agenda. 

The latter priority is no surprise given Osborn’s biography. Before entering politics, he was an industrial mechanic at Kellogg’s cereal company, where he led a 2021 strike against the corporate conglomerate (he was fired in 2023 in a move that he has called retaliation).

Osborn regularly portrays Fischer as a tool of her corporate donors, calling her a “creature of the D.C. swamp.” The incumbent “has taken so much corporate cash,” says one Osborn ad, that “she should wear patches, like NASCAR.”

Since he’s running in a state that Trump won by 19 points in 2020, Osborn isn’t shy about appealing to the former president’s voters. He’s run an ad in which ordinary Nebraskans say they are voting for Donald Trump “with one finger” and Dan Osborn with the other. In the same ad, he says Fischer has more in common with Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. He even accuses Fischer of “stabbing Trump in the back” after she called for him to exit the 2016 race after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape.

But looking under the hood of his campaign, it’s hard to find a single issue on which Osborn openly sides with Republicans. For example, he’s called for strengthening border security and is even running an ad that says his background as an industrial welder could come in handy in building Trump’s border wall. However, like Vice President Kamala Harris, he has criticized his Republican rival for failing to support the immigration deal negotiated by Republican Sen. James Lankford. 

On abortion, he says he opposes the procedure but believes it should be legal and has called for codifying Roe v. Wade in federal law. 

In a statement that would warm the heart of a social libertarian, Osborn recently said at a campaign event, “I don’t believe it’s my place or the government’s place to tell people when they should or shouldn’t start families, and that includes I.V.F. and contraceptives.” Even on the issue of guns, which usually trips up Democrats in red states like Nebraska, Osborn has said he supports the Second Amendment but also backs “reasonable gun safety measures.”

While Osborn’s unique style of politics has paid dividends, he has also benefited from Fischer’s missteps. Even after two terms in the Senate, she isn’t particularly well-known in the state and is one of the most unpopular senators in the country. For most of the campaign, Fischer ignored Osborn, a decision that backfired badly. “The Osborn campaign has basically been campaigning for a year unchecked by Fischer,” says Rubin. “He’s held hundreds of public events, and he was able to define himself before Fischer could.” When she finally started running ads against him, it had the perverse effect of raising Osborn’s profile further.

While her fellow Republican Pete Ricketts (running to complete former Sen. Ben Sasse’s term) is nearly 20 points ahead of his Democratic rival, national Republicans have been forced to plunge money into the state to rescue Fischer.

Osborn has also benefited from the quirkiness of Nebraska’s politics. Though the state is currently considered solidly Republican, Nebraska has a long tradition of nonpartisanship. Its unicameral state Legislature (the only one in the country) is nonpartisan, as candidates don’t run for office under party monikers. And it wasn’t long ago that Democrats were competitive in the Cornhusker State. As recently as 2012 the state was represented in the Senate by Democrat Ben Nelson — and he succeeded Democrat Bob Kerrey, who served two terms as senator. 

But like much of red-state America, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the GOP’s takeover by more extreme voices (first the tea party and then Trump’s MAGA), Democrats were simply unable to compete in states dominated by Republicans. 

Osborn’s success is a direct result of his running as a true independent — and separating himself from the cultural and social baggage of being a Democrat in a red state like Nebraska. Not surprisingly, Fischer has tried to paint him as a secret Democrat, but it’s a hard sell when Osborn has never been a member of the Democratic Party. “He’s an honest to God non-partisan,” says Kohen. “You can’t pin him down on being a party person. That makes him very unique.” 

Democrats have done their part to respect Osborn’s independence. Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the head of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee, recently said Democrats aren’t engaging in Nebraska “in any shape or form,” and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., hasn’t spoken to the upstart candidate. The state’s Democratic Party chairwoman even criticized Osborn as “inauthentic” and compared him to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.

Nonetheless, Osborn’s potential path to victory can give Democrats hope. “The message of this race is that their policy agenda can have resonance in red-state America,” says Kohen. “If you disconnect issues from party, this is what you end up getting.” 

Rubin agrees that while Osborn’s success is a bit of a “perfect storm,” his success in making this race competitive “can be a model for other states.” 

“There are a lot of people in the middle” who aren’t represented by either party,” says Rubin. “For any non-MAGA Republican, Osborn is a good fit.” We’ll have to see whether it’s enough to prevail on Tuesday night, but if Osborn somehow wins, the political earthquake could reshape American politics.