Deep-red Nebraska is the unexpected home to a competitive race that’s complicating Republicans’ plans to flip the US Senate.
Incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer (R), who’s served for over a decade, is being outspent by a first-time candidate, mechanic-turned-union-leader Dan Osborn, running without a party’s backing though with lots of help of a deep-pocketed super PAC.
Their contest will help determine who controls the Senate while testing whether a pro-labor message from a blue-collar populist resonates in a state with a recent history of choosing only Republicans.
“The Fischer-Osborn race is more competitive than it should be,” said Randall Adkins, a University of Nebraska Omaha professor who has written four books on congressional campaigns. “There’s just a lot being spent in Nebraska that one would not expect to be spent here normally.”
As he campaigns in diners, breweries, and other gathering spots, Osborn’s been emphasizing labor issues and his point of view as someone who doesn’t work in Washington, D.C.
He said he supports a federal $15 minimum wage, mandatory bereavement leave, lower tax rates for overtime pay, and laws that would make it easier to unionize.
“Imagine the ramifications on American politics if Nebraska elects an independent mechanic,” Osborn said on a campaign swing through Neligh, Neb., population around 1,600.
Small-town stops like that one supplement the big sweep of television ad campaigns.
The Retire Career Politicians PAC has spent more than $13 million on Osborn’s behalf, according to data from the broadcast and digital tracking firm AdImpact. The Senate Leadership Fund responded with a final-weeks infusion of $3.1 million — a safety net that was extended right before an independent survey of likely voters showed Fischer with a lead that was within the Siena College poll‘s margin of error.
An Osborn upset “would be eye-opening to a lot of states around this country,” said Lori Meyers of the Nebraska AFL-CIO. “He’s not trying to hide being a union worker in a conservative state or anything like that—he’s proud.”
“We’re happy that we actually have somebody that looks like us, talks like us, and is us,” she said.
Labor Issues
The voters considering whether to replace Fischer with Osborn also are being asked to mandate paid sick leave (Initiative 436) — two decisions being made as Kellogg’s prepares to close the Omaha plant where Osborn formerly was a union president.
The Fischer campaign has been stressing the senator’s workforce legislation, such as her bill creating a tax credit to offset the cost of employee benefits. It was incorporated into a larger tax law (Public Law No. 115-97) and in the current congressional session she introduced a measure (S. 3680) that would make more businesses eligible for the credit.
Fischer’s also the sponsor of a bill (S. 1274) that would restore unemployment and sickness benefits for rail workers. Nebraska is a major rail hub.
“Nebraskans support me because I’ve delivered results: from supporting border security and a strong national defense, to funding roads, bridges, and airports, to helping make life easier for working families through my paid family medical leave law,” Fischer said in a statement.
Former President Donald Trump stars on one of Fischer’s campaign commercials. “She’s solid as a rock. She’s totally for the farmers. She wants the state of Nebraska taken care of,” Trump says in the ad. “So she has my complete and total endorsement.”
One of Fischer’s challenges has been to defend her record while trying convince voters to reject a newcomer with no voting history.
The result has been some back-and-forth on what Osborn does or doesn’t advocate, and a spot in which Trump compares the Nebraska candidate to Vermont’s well-known senator. Osborn is a “radical left person, a Bernie Sanders-type Democrat,” that ad says.
Osborn is “a Bernie bro, not an average Joe,” says an NRSC-backed TV commercial.
Each campaign has accused the other of lying, with Osborn doubling down in an ad that shows him using an acetylene torch to cut the letters “L-I-E” into a TV.
If elected, Osborn said he wouldn’t caucus with either party, raising questions about how he’d be given committee assignments.
A veteran of the Navy and National Guard, Osborn’s interested in serving on the Armed Services and Commerce committees, according to campaign aide Dustin Wahl.
The people who made an effort to see Osborn in Neligh said they were impressed that he showed up in person.
“He’s got to get the grassroots people on board, because she has all the money and corporate behind her,” said Neligh resident Leonard Miller.
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