How independent Dan Osborn put Nebraska’s Deb Fischer on the ropes

As Nebraska voters 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 only 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. Still, national Democrats want nothing to do with Osborn — and that’s just fine with him. In what may 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 is not hard to find. As Ari Kohen, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska, told me, “If Dan was a Democrat, he would lose by 20 points.”

Barry Rubin, president of the Heartland Strategy Group and former executive director of the Nebraska Democratic Party, shares Cohen’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, Rubin says.

Osborn has steadfastly refused to say which party he would join if elected. But if the Senate is 50 Republicans to 49 Democrats after Election Day (and the Democrats win the White House), Osborn could become the deciding vote for control of the Senate — and, in short, the most powerful politician in Washington. Because of 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 off a win. But Osborn’s remarkable campaign in a consistently Republican state offers a tantalizing opportunity for Democrats: Has he cracked the code of how a progressive candidate can run a competitive race in red-state America?

Because while Osborn has eluded Democratic support, he runs on a progressive political platform heavy on economic populism. In September, Trump endorsed Fischer and called Osborn “a Bernie Sanders Democrat” – a claim that in many respects is not far off.

On his campaign website, Osborn attacks “private equity firms,” ​​calls for an end to “subsidies for super-profitable pharmaceutical companies” and promises to protect Social Security. He shines against “the millionaire and billionaire class inoculated from the very laws they make” and more recently told The New York Times, “We’re on the cusp of a corporate-run government.”

He also supports raising the minimum wage and corporate taxes, and has made the passage of the PRO law, a top priority for unions, a central element of his political 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 for her corporate donors, calling her a “creature from the DC swamp.” The incumbent “has taken so many companies’ cash,” says one Osborn announced that “she should wear patches, like NASCAR.”

Running in a state Trump won by 19 points in 2020, Osborn isn’t shy about appealing to the former president’s voters. He has 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 “stab Trump in the back” after she urged him to leave the 2016 race following the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape. For example, he is encouraged to strengthen border security and even runs an ad that talks about his background as an industrial welder could help build Trump’s border wall. However, he, like Vice President Kamala Harris, has criticized his Republican rival for not supporting the immigration deal negotiated by Republican Senator James Lankford.

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

In a statement that would warm the heart of a social libertarian, Osborn said recently at a campaign event“I don’t think it’s my place or the government’s place to tell people when they should or shouldn’t start families, and that includes IVF and contraceptives.” Although the issue of guns, which usually strikes Democrats in red states like Nebraska, Osborn has said he supports the Second Amendment but also supports “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 is not 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. “The Osborn campaign has basically campaigned for a year unchecked by Fischer,” says Rubin. “He has 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 even further. While her colleague, 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 throw money into the state to save Fischer.

Osborn has also benefited from the quirkiness of Nebraska politics. Although 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 do not run under party designations. 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 a senator. But like much of red-state America, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the GOP’s takeover of more extreme voices (first the tea party and then Trump’s MAGA), Democrats were simply unable to compete in Republican-dominated states.

Osborn’s success is a direct result of 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 that’s a hard sell when Osborn has never been a member of the Democratic Party. “He’s an honest-to-God nonpartisan,” Kohen says. “You can’t peg him as a party person. That makes him very unique.”

The Democrats have done their thing respect Osborn’s independence. Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the chairman of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee, said recently that Democrats are not engaging in Nebraska “in any shape or form,” and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has not spoken to the upstart candidate. Even the chairman of the State’s Democratic Party criticized Osborn as “ungenuine” and compared him to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. Nevertheless, Osborn’s potential path to victory may give Democrats hope. “The message in this race is that their political agenda may resonate in red-state America,” Kohen says. “If you decouple problems from the party, that’s what you end up with.”

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

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