Independent Dan Osborn launches another Nebraska Senate run

The independent Dan Osborn launched another race for the Senate at Nebraska on Tuesday after having led a surprisingly competitive, but ultimately unsuccessful campaign, the campaign last year.

And Osborn said that the biggest difference between last year and next year will be his republican opponent.

“All I am talking about, I think Pete Ricketts embodies,” said Osborn in an interview, referring to the Republican senator and former governor who presents himself for his first full term in the Senate next year after winning a special election last year.

“The billionaires should not be able to buy their path in the Senate seats, first of all,” said Osborn. “But it is this race down that people like me live, because it is – everything is so expensive, and it is simply extremely difficult to get ahead in life.”

The Republicans have already pointed out that they planned to deploy the same manual that they used against Osborn last year, throwing him as a democrat posing as an independent. Osborn continued to lose against the republican senator Deb Fischer of 7 percentage points.

“Despite his best efforts, the Nebraskans discovered that Osborn was a disguised democrat, funded by democrats outside the state like Chuck Schumer,” wrote Fischer in an X Post in April, that Ricketts was rehabilulated, after Osborn said this year that he was exploring another race in the Senate. Republicans seek to protect the majority of the party’s 53-47 in the Senate next year.

Osborn had weighed races for the Senate, the Chamber or the Governor and launched a political action committee to support the working class candidates.

Osborn received financial support from the Democrats during his candidacy in 2024, because the party did not present a candidate against Fischer. The majority of the Senate PAC, which is aligned with Schumer, from New York, the Democrat chief of the Senate, has donated to a Super CAP that stimulated Osborn, although external groups cannot coordinate with the countryside. Osborn also had the support of certain eminent democratic donors, such as Tom Steyer, when he raised more than $ 15 million in his campaign. And he recently shared a fund collection link for Actblue, a democratic fundraising platform.

But Osborn has always maintained the independence of the Democratic Party, and he said that he would not have a caucus with one or the other of the parties if he was elected.

“First of all, I was recorded independent since the time I could vote,” said Osborn. “But secondly, I did not ask for this money.

Osborn told New York Times last year that he was a democrat until 2016, but he recently said that he had “missed out” during this interview.

“I told the journalist that I grew up in a conservative house, and voted for the Democrats, and I voted for the Republicans,” said Osborn. “I tend to vote according to the principles, first, before the party. And somewhere in this conversation, it was a little biased. I do not remember the context of 2016 and why it was relevant in the conversation. ”

Omaha’s ketv reported that Osborn has been recorded as “non -partisan” since 2004, and state files also show a “Daniel L. Osborn” recorded as non -partisan.

“Fiscally, I would, I would be content with more than one traditional curator,” said Osborn. “Sometimes I think a small government can be a better government. But with regard to social problems and lift people in need, I leaned to the left in this way. ”

Osborn said he did not plan to request the approval of the State Democratic Party. Last year, the president of the Nebraska Democratic Party Jane Kleeb accused Osborn of “coming back to his word” by finally saying that he did not want party approval after having quietly asked for months. Osborn said that he had hoped for the support of the Democratic Party and the Libertarian Party, but that he decided to give up endorsements when they could not be done at the same time.

“I was looking for everyone’s approval,” he said.

The efforts of the Republicans to paint him as a democrat underline the delicate balancing that is facing Osborn when he runs in a state that Donald Trump carried by 20 points last year.

Osborn said he had not voted for Trump or vice-president Kamala Harris in November, writing rather in the president of the workers of United, Shawn Fain, for the president. Osborn, a former union organizer, described Fain as “one of my personal hema”.

During his race in the Senate last year, Osborn’s campaign launched a television announcement saying that he was with Trump “on China, the border and draining the marsh”. Osborn said he is still alining himself with Trump on border security, saying former President Joe Biden “failed on the border.”

Osborn had mixed opinions on Trump’s trade policies, saying that prices “have their time and place”, but adding that they must be “calculated and targeted”.

“General prices, especially with our neighbors Canada and Mexico, have no meaning for me,” said Osborn. “I think that all that is going to do is increase the prices for consumers and make life more expensive at a time when it’s already too expensive.”

Osborn hesitated to criticize Trump directly by name, but he said that he would have voted against the Trump tax and expenditure bill, highlighting the reductions in social programs and tax reductions that would benefit the rich.

“This will reduce services for people. They will have to cut as much paperwork to continue having their children special needs or whatever the case they are on these programs,” he said. “And people like Ricketts will continue to make millions of people from these cuts. I don’t see how not everyone had a problem with that.”