Independent Union Leader Not Dragged Down by the Democratic Brand Could Win Nebraska’s Senate Seat

This year’s Senate map is about as difficult as it gets for the Democratic Party, as there are many unwinnable red states and all the competitive races are in seats currently held by the Democrats. Cook Political says their path to keeping the upper chamber runs through both holding the White House and winning all their “likely” and “lean” states, then winning the “tossups” in Ohio and Michigan and reversing the momentum in Montana that has pushed it to “lean Republican.”

However, a couple new polls suggest that the Democrats may have a better chance to deny a Republican majority in the Senate than initially believed, thanks to Dan Osborn, an Independent running against the Republican incumbent Deb Fischer in Nebraska, which Cook Political has slotted as a “likely” Republican win.

There are just two Nebraska Senate polls in FiveThirtyEight’s database, but Osborn is leading both. A SurveyUSA poll from September 20-23 has him up by one point with 45 percent of the vote, while a new poll from the Bullfinch Group released yesterday gives Osborn a five-point lead with 47 percent. The caveat is that the SurveyUSA poll is sponsored by Osborn’s campaign, and the second is sponsored by The Independent Center who describes their mission as one to “advocate for the millions of Americans who believe we share common ground.” This doesn’t mean these polls are bunk, and SurveyUSA is one of FiveThirtyEight‘s higher rated pollsters, one spot behind CNN in their ratings, just that there may have been some interest behind paying a professional polling company to take a poll.

Given what we got out of these polls, it’s possible that the interest was just to recast this race as closer than election observers like Cook Political assert, based off the internal polling of the Osborn campaign. This notion is buttressed by the fact that despite a 2:1 voter registration advantage over the Democrats, Republican Super PACs are surprisingly spending money to defend Fischer in Nebraska.

All politics is local, so the saying goes, and it really is true. It’s very easy, and tempting, for us leftists not in Nebraska to look at this and say, “here’s the red state model: don’t be a Democrat!”

Osborn may not win in the end but the path forward is clear: dismantle the Democratic party entirely in red states (outside urban areas) and only run left wing populists. You won’t win every race but you’ll win more than the Democrats. https://t.co/Vf40YlrA08

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) October 2, 2024

There’s definitely some truth to this notion. Liberal and lefty policy can win in red states, as examples like Kansas’ overwhelming rejection of an abortion ban in 2022 and lefty ballot measures winning in the disastrous 2016 election prove, but opinion polls demonstrate that on the whole, Americans aren’t too jazzed about the Democratic Party, who are currently seen less favorably than the Republican Party. If this is what it looks like nationally, just imagine what it looks like in a red state like Nebraska.

The disingenuous sheen the consultant class has wrapped the Democratic Party in triggers every non-partisan’s bullshit detector, giving Democrats little to no hope to seriously compete in areas where it already has an uphill battle on policy. Look at how they took Tim Walz from America’s cool dad to a nervous generic politician speeding through his talking points who they hide from the cameras in just a couple of months. (Some) Democratic policy may be an attempt to better people’s lives, but the presentation leaves huge swaths of the electorate doubting that their politicians do. Then when the Democrats disappoint on policy, it confirms the skeptical instincts activated by the party’s patronizing pitch.

Barack Obama won Indiana and North Carolina in 2008 with an inclusive message of hope and a bottom-up vision of power in America that he did not follow through on, helping to pave the way for President Donald Trump. The model for Democrats to compete nationwide in 21st century elections has already been established, and Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act investing in red areas of the country has provided a measure of hope that there are those in the party who actually learned that lesson, instead of those forever stuck in the neoliberal Clinton-Obama doom loop.

All Politics Is Local

Dan Osborn has a background that makes him an S-tier candidate. He is not easily replicable.

Osborn is the President of Baker, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 50G, and he led the successful strike at Kellogg’s Omaha plant in 2021. He also is a member of Steamfitters and Plumbers Local 464. His mother was a seamstress, and his father Gary worked for Union Pacific Railroad, loading cargo. After moving to Omaha, Gary Osborn served as Dodge County Commissioner, and he was later injured in an accident and was moved to management out of state.

Dan Osborn, just 16 years old, stayed in Omaha to live on his own and finish high school while working odd jobs to pay the rent. After graduating high school, he enlisted in the Navy and later joined the Nebraska Army National Guard.

So yeah, lefties pointing to this race and saying “in red states just run the son of a former county commissioner who is a union president and served in the Navy after working and living on his own in high school” need to calm down a little bit. All politics is local, and Dan Osborn has as impressive a local resume as you will find before you even get into his populist platform which reflects his desire to ameliorate the specific problems plaguing Nebraska.

Two polls are nowhere near enough to come to any firm determination over this Senate race in Nebraska, other than it is likely closer than an assumed Republican win if an Independent is beating an incumbent Republican in both of them. If Osborn does win, or even come close to winning, he will have proven that there is something to the idea of shedding the toxic Democratic brand in red states and districts and running populist liberal to lefty candidates who can compete with Republicans in ways the cosmopolitan Democratic base never could.

Saying “just run a campaign like Osborn’s” is reductive and downplays his personal accomplishments, but there are community heroes all across America who could probably get a lot further in red states and districts than partisans think if they did not publicly identify as Democrats.