Dan Osborn Is a Progressive Populist— NOT A Democrat— And He’s Running For A Nebraska Senate Seat

Cricketts From Ricketts

Dan Osborn’s scrappy first run for the Senate last year— as an independent against GOP incumbent Deb Fischer— shocked Democrats. Statewide, he out-performed Kamala Harris 436,493 to 369,995. He beat her in every county in the state. He won Douglas County (Omaha) by 18 points. Kamala won it by 10. He won Lancaster County (Lincoln) by 16 points. Kamala won it by 4. On the same day, the Democrats ran one of their garden variety candidates, Preston Love, against Sen. Pete Ricketts in a special election. Love brought in 349,902 votes (37.4%)— 86,000 votes and nearly 10 points behind Osborn. 

Early in April we spoke with Osborn about running this cycle against Ricketts, son of billionaire Joe Ricketts, the founder of Ameritrade and owner of the Chicago Cubs. He told us that “In 2026, Senator Ricketts is up for re-election, and I am considering taking the fight directly to the billionaire class and running against him. If I decide to get in this race, Nebraska has a real shot at retiring Ricketts and replacing him with a working-class mechanic who will actually fight for the people of our great state. I'll be frank. I like my odds in this race: me, someone who's spent his life working for a living and will never take an order from a corporation or a party boss, vs. Senator Ricketts, who is a billionaire and is entirely beholden to corporations, party bosses, and his billionaire buddies.”

He launched an exploratory committee and yesterday, he launched a full-on campaign. He didn’t have to change much of his 2024 campaign issues page. Besides these, he also wrote about strong public schools, legalizing cannabis, campaign finance reform (“ban billionaires buying elections”), ending wasteful government handouts to the pharmaceutical industry, protecting middle class jobs and wages, reforming railroad safety, keeping government out of our private lives (once a GOP value but now a way of supporting women’s Choice and opposing legalized discrimination against groups of Americans) and passing congressional term limits.

Blue America endorsed him in 2024 and we endorsed him again yesterday. If you’re so inclined, you can contribute to his campaign here.

Omaha World-Herald politics reporter Dan Crisler noted that “Nebraska has not elected a Democrat or independent to the U.S. Senate since Democrat Ben Nelson defeated Rickets by 28 percentage points in 2006. Osborn, who led a 77-day labor strike against food manufacturer Kellogg Co. in 2021, said in an interview he’s motivated to run again because he wants to put forth ‘an unapologetically worker’s agenda. I don’t feel there’s enough people in the Senate and Congress that do that,’ the steamfitter said. Osborn’s announcement comes days after Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The bill is anything but beautiful in Osborn’s opinion. ‘This is going to increase the wealth of people like Pete Ricketts by millions while other people are going to struggle,’ Osborn said. He said the new law will negatively affect people with special needs and small family farms and ranches among others.

As he did in his 2024 campaign, Osborn will remain an independent who doesn’t plan to caucus with either Senate Republicans or Democrats if he is elected. ‘We want to challenge the system,” he said, saying the two-party system creates a doom-loop that prevents legislation such as a new farm bill from being passed. The current farm bill was passed in 2018. It was supposed to last for five years but currently is operating under an extension through Sept. 30. Osborn said he will emphasize a message of ‘unity’ that cuts across political lines. ‘I don’t care what party you are. That doesn’t matter to me,’ he said. ‘Let’s focus on the issues and let’s focus on how we uplift Nebraskans.’”

He released this video yesterday. It’s a good one:

Brakkton Booker, Jordain Carney reported that Osborn’s announcement “comes as Elon Musk is moving to create a third party. The candidate told Politico he’s not interested in ditching an independent bid to join the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s aspirational ‘America Party,’ but would be open to his financial support… I’m not interested in that. I’m an independent. I’ve been an independent from the time I could vote,’ he said. ‘It’s an interesting idea, for sure, and he certainly has the money to do something like that,’ he said of Musk, before making clear his chief goal if elected is to help take big money out of politics. But to do that, he’s got to first vanquish Ricketts.”

[H]e expects Ricketts and his allies to ‘come out with a lot of money and go very negative right from the beginning… We’re starting off in a much better place with a tried-and-true set of volunteers across the state,’ Osborn said of the name ID he gained by coming within single digits of Sen. Deb Fischer. He believes the grassroots operation he built last year coupled with a growing push of voters to upend status quo politics will help him break the GOP unanimous control of Nebraska’s congressional delegation.”

National polling hints at a growing discontent among independents, Democrats and some Republicans over Trump’s policies, including the passage of his megabill last week that critics predict will add trillions to the national deficit and boot millions off Medicaid.

Where Trump’s standing will be in 2026 among Nebraska’s largely conservative electorate is a wild card. But Ken Schilz, a former Republican state senator from Nebraska suggested the race will come down to how well Ricketts defines Osborn early on.

“Fischer’s campaign really didn’t even just scratch the surface on opposition research on Osborn,” said Schilz. “Ricketts will spend the money to go out and attack Osborn. He won’t wait around. For his political operatives, it’s kind of what they live for.”

Trump endorsed Ricketts earlier this year in a Truth Social post as Osborn flirted with a Senate run and called Osborn a “radical left open border extremist.”

Osborn made a blatant play for Trump voters in 2024, including vowing to help the president build the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and started a “conservatives for Osborn” fundraising offshoot. To win statewide, Osborn will need to flip disenchanted GOP voters in the state’s western half.

“I think Nebraska has a real, real chance of being the center of a lot that goes on this political season,” Schilz added, pointing to the recent retirement announcement from longtime Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE.), whose district includes the state’s so-called “blue dot” of Omaha.

…Nebraska Democratic Party chair Jane Kleeb met with Osborn last week, in part to discuss whether he would have supported Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill.” He answered in the negative. The two were at odds, at times, during the 2024 race, as Kleeb and other party Democrats questioned if they were helping elect the next Kyrsten Sinema, a reference to the Democrat-turned-independent who frustrated the party’s base.

Kleeb said for Osborn to win, he’ll have to make up ground in Nebraska’s 3rd Congressional District, which broke heavily for Fischer last cycle. She said it’s possible.

“We just think that there is so much anger at what is happening with all of the cuts, in particular in rural communities, that if there was ever an opening to win statewide, [2026] is the year.”

But Osborn vows to remain independent, saying: “I have no problem sitting at lunch by myself.”

During my lifetime, the GOP has never been the lesser evil. And the Democrats have rarely been more than that. There’s a reason the two-party system is failing so many Americans, and it’s not just about the built-in dysfunction; it’s also about the built-in corruption. Democratic and Republican political careerists alike have sold their souls to the same billionaire class, the same, more or less, corporate PACs, the same type of cynical consultants who tell them how to triangulate instead of how to lead. That, in part, is why Osborn’s candidacy matters. He’s not running to join the club as much as he’s running to smash the doors open and let working people inside for a change. He isn’t going to “reach across the aisle” to cut another raw deal for big pharma or defense contractors. He’s going to fight— relentlessly AND across the aisle— for the people who’ve been left out, sold out and worn down by the status quo.

When Osborn says he won’t take orders from a corporation or a party boss— whether Trump, Thune, Schumer or Musk— he means it. And in a Senate packed with empty suits and millionaire puppets, a steamfitter from Omaha with callused hands and a working-class agenda is exactly the kind of disruption we need. Progressives shouldn’t fear independent candidates like him— we should be building a movement around them. When someone like him wins, it sends a message that reaches far beyond Nebraska: that politics doesn’t have to be bought, that courage still matters and that a new kind of leadership— authentic, accountable, rooted in the lives of ordinary people— is still actually possible. I’m not claiming Osborn is perfect but in an era when both parties are too often complicit in policies that devastate the poor and reward the powerful, an independent campaign grounded in principle, people and purpose is more a necessity than a risk. That’s why Blue America endorsed him. That’s why he deserves our support. And that’s why Nebraska could become the unlikely epicenter of a rebellion against the billionaire class that owns Washington.