A Billionaire Seat Is Up In Nebraska Next Year— Let's Help Draft Independent Dan Osborn To Run

Since the 2024 election, independent populist Dan Osborn has been working as a steam fitter. We’re hoping he’ll run for Senate again, this time against billionaire Pete Ricketts and we know he’ll have to run the campaign, at least at first, between shifts. Last year he did really will against the other Republican incumbent:

• Deb Fischer- 499,124 (53.3%)

• Dan Osborn- 436,493 (46.7%)

Ricketts had a special election and his opponent was a Democrat who he clobbered:

• Pete Ricketts- 585,103 (62.6%)

• Preston Love- 349,902 (37.4%)

Osborn also did a lot better than Kamala Harris— both in terms of raw votes. In terms of percentages and in terms of counties won:

• Trump- 564,816 (59.6%)

• Kamala- 369,995 (39.1%)

Osborn won Douglas (by 18 points), Lancaster (by 16 points), Sarpy (by a fraction of a point) and Thurston (by 6 points). Kamala won Douglas (by 10 points) and Lancaster counties (by 4 points).

Blue America is hoping Osborn will jump in against Ricketts before the Democratic Party sticks someone if who has no chance to win— basically any Democrat. Yesterday, he told me 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. But taking down the billionaire Senator won't be easy, so yesterday, I launched my exploratory committee— for an independent Senate campaign against Pete Ricketts. Now, I am asking folks across Nebraska to let me know their thoughts. Do they want a Senator who will take on the billionaires who are screwing over Nebraska? Do they want a Senator who will shake up Washington and make it work for Nebraska? Let me know.” 

Yesterday, Brakkton Booker and Jordain Carney reported that Osborn “is taking steps to prove his overperformance in deep-red Nebraska was no fluke. On Thursday he announced the formation of an exploratory committee, setting him on potential collision course with one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, Republican Pete Ricketts— something Osborn said amplified the “illness” of the uber wealthy influencing politics. ‘Billionaires have bought up the country and are carving it up day by day. The economy they’ve built is good for them, bad for us,’ Osborn said in a post on Twitter. ‘This race, we could have a chance to win. We could take on this illness, the billionaire class, directly,’ he continued. ‘We could replace a billionaire with a mechanic.’”

This time, though, Osborn would be running against a self-funder who wouldn’t need any help from Elon Musk. He’s the son of billionaire founder and former CEO of TD Ameritrade Joe Ricketts, the majority owner of baseball’s Chicago Cubs franchise. The only wealthier member of the Senate is, possibly, Medicare fraudster Rick Scott.

During his initial Senate bid, Osborn presented himself as the anti-partisan outsider and the everyman working class candidate. He also vowed during the campaign that he would not caucus with either party if he joined the Senate.

He railed against Fischer, casting her as out of touch with Nebraskans who placed donors before the needs of her constituents, a line of attack that helped make the contest surprisingly competitive. Osborn was boosted by Democrats’ decision not to field their own candidate against Fischer, which further fueled tensions with some party activists when he spurned endorsements shortly before the state party was expected to offer it. Republicans also privately grumbled that it took Fischer and her team too long to go on the attack against Osborn, providing him with a void in which to gain momentum and largely define himself.

He’s reprising some of his same attack lines in his exploratory committee launch, and borrowing heavily from anti-billionaire rhetoric that Democrats deployed this week against Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk, who pumped more than $25 million into the campaign to support a conservative-leaning justice in a losing effort.

“Just me and Pete. Someone who’s spent his life working for a living and will never take an order from a corporation or a party boss, or someone who’s never worked a day in his life and is entirely beholden to corporations and party bosses,” Osborn said. “I think Washington, D.C., could use less billionaires, and more working people.”

…“I think our government should look more like us as far as income levels go,” Osborn told Politico in February. “The reason why it doesn’t … is because of the money.”

My best guess is that Osborn is going to take up the challenge again, even if it’s at great personal sacrifice. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear more. One more thing he toldme yesterday, something worth thinking about: “Right now, neither Republicans nor Democrats in Washington are standing up to the billionaires who are buying our government. While the billionaires get richer and buy more power and influence in Washington, working people across the country, but especially in Nebraska, are getting left behind because no one in Washington is fighting for them.”