Dan Osborn forms PAC to help working-class candidates run for office

Independent Dan Osborn, an industrial mechanic who narrowly lost his bid to replace incumbent Republican Deb Fischer in the U.S. Senate this month, has formed a PAC to help working-class candidates run for office.

He also left the door open for another run himself.

The Working Class Heroes Fund is the only PAC in the country “dedicated to uniting and mobilizing working people across party lines to give the working class a seat at the table,” Osborn said in a news release.

“Less than 2% of our elected leaders are from the working class. Congress is a bunch of millionaires controlled by billionaires and special interests,” Osborn said. “Both parties are out of touch with working-class voters, and regular people are fed up with Washington politicians that have sold out the working class for a generation.”

The PAC will organize voters to mobilize for working-class issues and candidates, particularly veterans.

Osborn, a steamfitter, was a political newcomer when he challenged Fischer last year.

He almost pulled off the upset, despite a tsunami of money spent by Republicans in the last month of the campaign to run ads against him. 

“Ten million dollars in the last couple weeks,” Osborn said in a recent interview with the Nebraska Independent.

Unofficial election results from the Nebraska secretary of state’s office show Fischer won 53% to 47%.

Osborn, 49, announced after 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.

After serving in the Navy, Osborn began work as a 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 a  strike by workers at the plant, 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 would remain open through 2026.

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

Osborn refused to accept endorsements from any elected politicians or money from corporate backers.

He said running for another office, possibly against Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts in two years, is a possibility.

“We’re leaving that on the table,” Osborn said. “There’s mayors and governors [races] coming up also, so we’re exploring our options.”