The surprising rise of independent US Senate candidate Dan Osborn

Until now, Dan Osborn’s political resume consisted solely of being elected president of his local union at the Omaha Kellogg’s plant, where he works as an industrial mechanic.

Today, he finds himself in a U.S. Senate race with control of Congress at stake in the Nov. 5 election. An independent who has never run for public office, Osborn is in a surprisingly tight race against incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer, who is seeking her third six-year term despite having promised in 2012 to serve only two.

Friends and family initially discouraged him from running.

“Most people in my life … told me that this was too crazy of an idea, that nobody could beat Sen. Fischer in Nebraska, so that only fueled me to want to do it more,” Osborn told the Nebraska Independent in a phone interview. “When people tell you you can’t do something, I tend to want to try it anyway, even more so.”

A poll released Sept. 24 by SurveyUSA showed Osborn with a narrow 45%-44% lead over Fischer.

Osborn, 49, announced after winning the May primary that he would not seek the endorsement of the Nebraska Democratic Party, which was having trouble finding a candidate, saying he did not want to be beholden to any political party.

Osborn, who has strong labor union support, has refused to accept endorsements from any elected politicians or money from corporate backers.

“People want someone in Washington who speaks for them, not for a party boss or whatever corporation contributes the biggest check,” Osborn said in a separate text message to the Nebraska Independent.

Paul Landow, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said the race is intriguing.

“I still believe that Fischer is likely to win, but Osborn has definitely made a race of it. That is because Osborn is appealing to the independent nature of Nebraskans,” Landow said in an email to the Nebraska Independent. “His independence played well this year against a candidate people see as tired and too cozy with Washington types.”

Osborn spent most of his childhood in Omaha, where his mother worked as a seamstress and his father loaded freight for the Union Pacific Railroad.

After high school, he followed his father’s footsteps and served four years in the U.S. Navy and then in the National Guard in Tennessee and Nebraska.

After his Navy stint and returning to Nebraska, Osborn reconnected with his future wife, Megan, an old high school friend.

“It was just a random Tuesday night at a karaoke joint,” Osborn said. “We ran into each other and started dating and were married eight months later.”

They live in a middle-class neighborhood in Omaha and have three children: Eve, 16, Liam, 18, and Georgia, 21.

Osborn began work as an industrial mechanic at the Kellogg’s plant in Omaha in 2004. In 2021, he rose to the presidency of Local 50-G of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union in Omaha.

Later that year, he spearheaded the Nebraska plant workers’ strike, part of a successful nationwide strike against Kellogg’s. The strike led the company to walk back its efforts to slash benefits and guaranteed the Omaha factory will remain open through 2026.

Soon after the strike, Osborn decided to run for the Senate.

While the campaign has engulfed his life, he tries to carve out time for his family, such as helping his son and a friend restore a 1988 Pontiac Firebird.

“Sometimes they get stuck taking something apart or trying to put something back in, so they’ll call me,” Osborn said.”Sometimes I’ve been working till 10 o’clock at night, and I get home and I’ll sacrifice an hour or two of sleep and help them get to a good stopping point.”

The family time helps him recharge his batteries and get away from the campaign grind.

“Everything that I enjoy doing revolves around hanging out with my family, going to the zoo with them, or whatever it is we’re doing, because I don’t get a lot of free time,” he said. “I’ll try to get to the gym and then I try to hang out with my family, even if it’s just sitting around watching Netflix.”