{"id":317314,"date":"2025-08-04T14:11:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/317314\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T14:11:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:11:16","slug":"theres-an-appetite-for-this-brand-of-politics-the-independent-politician-making-a-bid-for-us-senate-us-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/317314\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018There\u2019s an appetite for this brand of politics\u2019: the independent politician making a bid for US Senate | US politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Osborn is a man who does not like to lose, and if you had asked him on election night last year whether he would run again as an independent for a US Senate<\/a> seat representing the very Republican state of Nebraska<\/a>, Osborn would have told you to, in his words, \u201cpound sand\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet the results of his first bid for elected office were alluring, so much so that he has decided take another stab at becoming only the third current member of the US Senate who is not in either of the two parties. While he did not beat the Republican senator Deb Fischer last November, he did narrow her margin of victory to the single digits in a state that Donald Trump<\/a> won by 20 points. Next year, Osborn will challenge the state\u2019s other Republican senator, Pete Ricketts, in a contest he characterizes as a struggle between the working class and the wealthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s an appetite for this brand of politics,\u201d Osborn told the Guardian by phone from Omaha. \u201cIt\u2019s so important they see the value in having somebody like me, who knows what it\u2019s like to put Christmas on a credit card, I suppose, versus somebody like Ricketts, who is probably just in it for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osborn\u2019s campaign last year<\/a> was a rare bright spot for many in an election that saw voters pummel candidates who were not on Trump\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

Nebraska has only elected Republicans<\/a> to the Senate since Democrat Ben Nelson\u2019s victory in 2006, but Osborn managed to outperform Kamala Harris by more than any other non-Republican Senate candidate. In next year\u2019s elections, Osborn may get a boost from the anti-incumbent sentiment that so often pervades midterms, but Ricketts, a former governor who is running for a full term after winning a special election last year, is one of the best-known Republicans in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think he\u2019s going to have a much tougher task this time around,\u201d Dona-Gene Barton, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska\u2013Lincoln who focuses on polling, said of Osborn. Compared to Fischer, Ricketts is \u201cmuch more popular in the state. He has incredibly deep pockets, and he\u2019s the sitting incumbent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osborn believes he has a compelling argument. As a union leader, he organized Nebraska workers during a nationwide strike at the cereal giant Kellogg\u2019s<\/a>, and now balances campaigning with his day job as an industrial mechanic. The working class may have broken for the real estate mogul Trump last year, but he believes that further down the ballot, they will vote for a candidate who is one of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur government doesn\u2019t look like me, so that\u2019s certainly what I want to get in there and change. And I think that\u2019s what\u2019s on most people\u2019s minds as well,\u201d he said. Osborn draws a particular contrast to Ricketts, whose father founded stockbroker TD Ameritrade and whose net worth is estimated at $184m by the stock tracker Quiver Quantitative.<\/p>\n

Dan Osborn speaks during a news conference on 15 May 2024 at his home in Omaha, Nebraska. Photograph: Nikos Frazier\/AP<\/p>\n

Another potential advantage: he\u2019s not a Democrat. Last year, Osborn wrote in the United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, on the presidential ballot, and said that if he was elected, he would not caucus with either party.<\/p>\n

Independent lawmakers are rare in Congress. Bernie Sanders<\/a> of Vermont and Angus King of Maine are the only two in the Senate, and both caucus with the Democrats, while the House has not had one since 2021. The last time Nebraska elected an independent federal lawmaker was in 1936.<\/p>\n

Voters, Osborn believes, are looking for a candidate who will break the two-party logjam in Washington, stand up to the rich and not clash with Trump simply on principle.<\/p>\n

Our government doesn\u2019t look like me, so that\u2019s certainly what I want to get in there and change. And I think that\u2019s what\u2019s on most people\u2019s minds as well<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dan Osborn<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll work with anybody \u2026 the problem, I think, inherently, with our government right now, is they don\u2019t seem to want to work together,\u201d Osborn said. Though Trump has bashed him on social media repeatedly, Osborn said: \u201cI\u2019m not just going to be anti just for the sake of being anti.\u201d<\/p>\n

He criticizes how Joe Biden handled the influx of immigrants during his presidency, and repeats Trump\u2019s aphorism that \u201cwithout a border, we don\u2019t have a country\u201d. Yet he does not like everything he sees from the new administration, such as the way it celebrates new detention centers for deportees, or how Elon Musk pirouetted with a chainsaw<\/a> at the outset of his so-called \u201cdepartment of government efficiency\u201d initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t understand the whole bragging about hurting people,\u201d Osborn said.<\/p>\n

While his relationship with the state Democratic party last year was touchy at times, this year, the party has decided to support his campaign, though a Democratic candidate could also still jump into the race. Jane Kleeb, the state party chair, said in an interview that they view Osborn as an ally for their causes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the vast majority of issues, like the core issues that matter to working- and middle-class families, Dan is on the same side of where I think any of those votes would be,\u201d Kleeb said.<\/p>\n

\u201cProtecting Medicaid, Medicare \u2013 he\u2019s not going to side with Republicans on that. Middle-class tax cuts, bringing back childcare credits, making sure that our American energy is diversified \u2026 protecting unions, name the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ricketts\u2019s campaign responded by arguing that Osborn was essentially a Democrat. \u201cFake Dan Osborn can continue pretending to be an independent, but he is endorsed by the Nebraska Democratic party, funded by Democrats<\/a>, and backs Democrats\u2019 most extreme policy positions,\u201d said spokesperson Will Coup. (Kleeb said the Nebraska Democratic party does not endorse candidates, and had not endorsed Osborn.)<\/p>\n

Now, Osborn\u2019s candidacy has prompted the University of Virginia\u2019s Center for Politics to change its rating<\/a> of the race from \u201cSafe Republican\u201d to \u201cLikely Republican\u201d. Another prominent forecaster, the Cook Political Report, kept their rating<\/a> unchanged at \u201cSolid Republican\u201d, but noted they may re-evaluate \u201cif Osborn\u2019s blue-collar messaging gets some traction\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the campaign trail last year, Osborn said he found himself appearing before crowds at campaign events where half of those in attendance were wearing Trump gear, and the other sported shirts from the Harris campaign. He sees recapturing that spirit as key to his victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would see people with both style shirts, grabbing yard signs before they left,\u201d Osborn said. \u201cSo I made it not about red versus blue. It\u2019s about uplifting everybody in the communities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan Osborn is a man who does not like to lose, and if you had asked him on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-317314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114970904817727882","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}