Dan Osborn loses to Pete Ricketts in Nebraska, but his two-race run rewrote what an independent can do in a red state

Dan Osborn lost. Again. But the numbers tell a more complicated story than that one word suggests.

Republican Pete Ricketts won election Wednesday to the U.S. Senate representing Nebraska, defeating independent candidate Dan Osborn. The race was called for Ricketts early Wednesday, when he led with 50.2% of the vote to Osborn's 43.9%. The Associated Press declared Ricketts the winner at 3:27 a.m. EST. By any standard measure, that is a loss. In Nebraska, in 2026, in a state where Republicans own the congressional delegation and have for decades, it is also something the political world had not seen coming when Osborn first showed up with a card table and a bullhorn.

People across the country are searching for Osborn's name today because his race was one of a small handful of contests nationally that cut against the grain of a major Democratic wave night. While Democrats swept statehouses and flipped Senate seats in states like Georgia, Kansas, and Texas, Nebraska held. Ricketts held. And Osborn, the pipefitter who ran twice on pure working-class nerve, went home without a Senate seat for the second election in a row.

So who is Dan Osborn, how did he get here twice, and what does his back-to-back run mean for independent politics going forward?

Who Dan Osborn is

Osborn is an American veteran, labor union leader, and independent politician from Nebraska. He was born on March 29, 1975. He moved to Nebraska with his family when he was seven. When he was 16, his parents moved to Washington state after his father suffered a workplace accident that forced him to transition to a desk job. Osborn chose to stay in Nebraska and live on his own.

He served four years in the U.S. Navy aboard the aircraft carrier USS Constellation, then went into the Army National Guard. He also served in the Nebraska, Idaho, and Tennessee Army National Guard after his Navy service. After the military, he went to work with his hands.

In 2004, he began working as an industrial mechanic at a factory owned by the Kellogg's cereal company and joined his workplace union, a decision that would ultimately put him on the path to politics. He had risen to president of the union by 2021, when he led his coworkers into a contentious negotiation with the company that eventually resulted in a 77-day strike that became a major national story.

The strike got significant national attention, especially when the union prevailed, winning salary increases and staving off an expansion to a two-tier wage system that management had threatened. Shortly after the end of the strike, Dan Osborn was fired by Kellogg. He claims it was in retaliation for being a leader of the strike, while Kellogg claims he was fired for watching Netflix at work, among other offenses.

Fired, locally famous, and newly politicized. That is the origin story.

The 2024 campaign that made him a national name

In the 2024 United States Senate election in Nebraska, union president Dan Osborn ran as an independent against Republican incumbent Deb Fischer, losing by fewer than seven points in one of Nebraska's closest Senate races. Osborn did perform better than Vice President Kamala Harris, losing to Fischer by 7 percentage points as former President Donald Trump won Nebraska by about 21 points.

That is a stunning split-ticket performance in a state where the Republican brand is essentially the default. GOP voters make up roughly half of registered voters in Nebraska, and Democrats make up just a quarter. Osborn had no business being within single digits of a two-term Republican senator. He was, anyway.

After that race, Osborn launched a political action committee called the Working Class Heroes Fund to support working-class candidates of all parties. He went back to work as a steamfitter. And he started thinking about 2026.

Round two: taking on Pete Ricketts

In early 2025, Osborn formed an exploratory committee for a potential 2026 run. The seat he set his sights on was different. Ricketts had won the 2024 race to fill out the remainder of former Sen. Ben Sasse's term and was the favorite to win a full six years in the upper chamber.

Ricketts is a former Nebraska governor and a wealthy investor. He is also part of the Ricketts family that owns the Chicago Cubs. His personal fortune gave him a financial cushion that few Senate incumbents could match.

Osborn announced his candidacy in a video, saying: "I'm running for Senate because Congress shouldn't just be a playground for the rich."

The Nebraska Secretary of State's office later announced that Osborn had collected at least 6,096 valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot, well over the 4,000 required.

A Navy veteran and former union leader, Osborn ran on a populist, working-class message, blending support for labor and some abortion rights with backing for gun rights and tougher immigration enforcement. He was endorsed by the Nebraska Democratic Party, the Nebraska AFL-CIO, and the United Auto Workers.

The Democratic clearing of the field

The strategy Democrats adopted for this race was unusual and drew real scrutiny. Democrat Cindy Burbank won her party's primary earlier this year but served as a stalking horse candidate for Osborn, campaigning on her intention to withdraw and clear the way for the independent candidate, who was backed by Democratic leaders.

Nebraska Democrats declined to nominate a replacement after Cindy Burbank withdrew from the general election, leaving Osborn as the principal challenger to Ricketts without requiring him to run under a Democratic Party label. The idea was to give Osborn a one-on-one shot at Ricketts, the best possible environment for a candidate trying to assemble a coalition across party lines.

Osborn had the added advantage of a one-on-one race against Ricketts after the Democratic nominee ended her campaign in July. The Senate race had twists and turns, with lawsuits, candidates and new political parties facing allegations of being spoilers, and candidates suspending their campaigns to support Osborn.

The 'Democrat Dan' playbook and the leaked audio

Ricketts and national Republicans had one main line of attack, and they never stopped running it. In their debate, Ricketts called Osborn "Democrat Dan" so many times that the independent suggested they should bring out a third podium.

Ricketts said at a September debate: "Democrat Dan is too extreme, and he would be the most extreme senator we've ever sent to the U.S. Senate from Nebraska. And if he were in charge of the Senate and gave it to the Democrats, that would be a disaster for Nebraska."

Osborn pushed back consistently. He said, "First of all, I've been a registered independent from the time I could vote." He also promised not to caucus with either party if elected.

Then came the audio. Nebraska independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn appeared to confirm the authenticity of a leaked recording in which he is purported to criticize voters who support President Donald Trump. The Omaha World-Herald released audio of Dan Osborn claiming that Trump supporters have lives that "probably suck so f---ing bad."

Asked by CNN's Dana Bash on "Inside Politics" if he was the speaker, Osborn replied, "It sure sounds like me." After weeks of leaked recordings, the new recording prompted his critics to call it a potential "deplorables" moment.

The Ricketts campaign and national Republicans spent a year and a half painting Dan Osborn as a Democrat, despite his nonpartisan status. The race was heavily focused on Osborn rather than Ricketts, as Osborn often had to play defense against controversies amplified by Ricketts and Republicans, including multiple audio leaks.

Separately, Osborn faced criticism over campaign spending. Federal campaign finance records showed his campaign paid more than $500,000 to members of his family since launching his Senate bid. Americans for Public Trust, a government ethics watchdog, estimated Osborn and members of his family received nearly $480,000 from his campaign and affiliated PACs through the first quarter of 2026. The Osborn campaign rejected allegations that those payments violated campaign finance law, arguing they covered legitimate campaign work.

Trump and Vance weigh in

The race drew national political muscle to Nebraska's corn and cattle country. The contest was close enough to bring President Trump and Vice President Vance out to central Nebraska to offer their personal endorsements for Ricketts.

The sharp attacks on Osborn underscored the tougher-than-expected nature of the race in a state Donald Trump won by 20 points in 2024. Pre-election polling had made the race look genuinely competitive. Decision Desk HQ's final polling average showed Ricketts leading Osborn 47.7 percent to 45.6 percent, a margin of just 2.1 percentage points. Despite the narrow polling margin, the Cook Political Report rated the race Likely Republican heading into Election Day.

The final count

Ricketts led Osborn by 47,088 votes, 370,411 to 321,218, out of 735,260 total votes counted. Official results have not yet been certified.

Candidates running with two new political parties received a combined total of 6 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results early Wednesday, votes that likely cost Osborn any path to victory. Had even a fraction of those votes broken his way, the race would have looked very different on a map.

Osborn's defiance of the electoral trends rocking the rest of the nation keeps Nebraska bright red, even as other reliably Republican states featured decisive Democratic wins. Kansas, Nebraska's southern neighbor, elected its first Democratic senator in nearly a century, while Texas pushed aside a number of Republicans in a stunning series of upsets.

Nebraskans bucked the national trend, voting to keep Republican Pete Ricketts in the U.S. Senate for another term.

What Ricketts said, what Osborn said

Ricketts, a staunch conservative, portrayed his opponent as a socialist over the course of the race. He told reporters as his victory materialized that Democrats helped Osborn in the hopes of giving Nebraska a socialist senator.

There are few socialists in the Democratic Party, and Osborn largely rejected their policy stances. He urged Ricketts as the race's results became clear to "take care" of his supporters, including those whose political affiliation was vilified by the senator.

In a Wednesday social media post, Osborn thanked his supporters and encouraged them to "keep pushing."

What made this race different from an ordinary long-shot challenge

Independent Senate candidates do not usually get this close in states this red. Before this race, an independent last won a Senate race in Nebraska in 1936, and Republicans last lost one in 2006.

Osborn's formula was not complicated, but it was disciplined. He crisscrossed the state on a 93-county tour, showing up in places where Democrats rarely bother to campaign. Whether speaking to urban liberal crowds or MAGA voters in rural Nebraska, Osborn's staff argued the message was the same: politicians like those in Washington are stabbing working people in the back, and he was running to bring the same militancy to Washington that he did to the picket line during the Kellogg strike.

He positioned himself as a working-class populist outside the two-party system, focusing on workers' rights, reducing corporate influence in politics, and lowering costs for working families. With his background as a labor union leader, Osborn advocated for union and workers' rights, an increase in minimum wage, and immigration and labor protection. He also pledged to fight for adequate resources and funding to support public schools, and opposed public funds or vouchers for private schools.

With no Democratic nominee on the general election ballot, Osborn attempted to build a coalition of independents, Democrats, and disaffected Republicans against one of Nebraska's most established political figures. He came closer than almost anyone predicted he would. He still lost by roughly 6 points.

What his two campaigns mean for the independent-candidate argument

Osborn was not a fluke. He ran twice, in two different races, against two different Republican incumbents, and held his margin steady. In 2024, he significantly outperformed Democratic nominee Preston Love Jr., who lost the concurrent special Senate election to Pete Ricketts by more than 24 points. In 2026, he got to 43.9% without a Democratic opponent on the general ballot at all.

The question the results raise is whether the independent label itself was a ceiling or a floor. Ricketts never stopped calling Osborn a Democrat. Osborn faced an onslaught of attacks accusing him of being a secret Democrat, and those attacks, combined with the audio tapes, appear to have worked well enough in rural counties to hold the margin out of reach. In Omaha's Douglas County, the numbers moved significantly toward Osborn compared to 2024, but the rural portions of the state stayed firmly with Ricketts.

What Osborn did prove is that a credible independent, with a compelling working-class story and genuine retail political skill, can force a sitting senator with deep personal wealth to sweat through election night and bring in the sitting president and vice president to save his seat. That is not nothing.

Ricketts will now serve his first full six-year term in the U.S. Senate, returning to a chamber that looks very different from the one he left for election night. Democrats flipped seats across the country. Nebraska stayed red. And Dan Osborn is heading back to Omaha, where a 93-county handshake tour did not quite add up to 50 percent plus one.

Sources

• Nebraska Examiner, Pete Ricketts defeats Dan Osborn in bitter Nebraska Senate race
• PBS NewsHour, Live results: Pete Ricketts wins Nebraska Senate election
• NBC News, GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts fends off independent Dan Osborn in Nebraska Senate race
• The Washington Post, Nebraska Senate election live results 2026
• CNN, Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn responds to leaked audio criticizing Trump voters
• The Hill, Ricketts wins reelection over independent Osborn in Nebraska Senate race
• WOWT Omaha, Election Night 2026: Nebraska voters send Ricketts back to Washington
• Nebraska Examiner, Dan Osborn qualifies for November ballot
• NPR, Independent candidates sense a moment
• Legis1, Nebraska: And the winner is
• The American Prospect, The newcomer from the shop floor