Who is Dan Osborn? Meet the Nebraska independent who could decide which party controls the Senate

October 22, 2026 3oliver

Who is Dan Osborn? Meet the Nebraska independent who could decide which party controls the Senate

The Navy veteran and former union leader has said he wants to break the “two-party doom loop” in Washington, D.C.

Mike Bebernes

Wed, October 21, 2026 at 6:02 PM UTC

6 min read

The biggest question heading into November’s midterms is whether, once all votes have been counted, Democrats or Republicans will win control of Congress. The final answer, though, might ultimately depend on someone who isn’t a member of any party.

Dan Osborn is an independent candidate running for Senate in Nebraska. He’s challenging Republican incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts in a race that appears on track to be the closest contest the deep-red state has seen in decades.

Osborn has consistently been critical of both parties and puts major emphasis on the goal of breaking up their control over American politics. That could make him something of a wild card if he’s elected to the nation’s most important legislative body.

Here’s what you need to know about who he is, what he stands for and what he needs to do to pull off an upset in the typically deep-red state of Nebraska.

The 2026 midterm election will be held Nov. 3

Who is Dan Osborn?

Osborn grew up in Omaha, Neb., as the son of a railroad worker and a seamstress. When he was 16, his parents moved to Washington state after his father suffered a workplace accident that forced him to transition to a desk job — Osborn chose to stay in Nebraska and live on his own. After graduating from high school, he joined the Navy and served for four years as a storekeeper on the aircraft carrier USS Constellation. After leaving the Navy, he did stints in both the Nebraska and Tennessee National Guards.

In 2004, he began working as an industrial mechanic at a factory owned by the Kellogg’s cereal company and joined his workplace union — a decision that would ultimately put him on the path to politics. He had risen to president of the union by 2021, when he led his coworkers into a contentious negotiation with the company that eventually resulted in a 77-day strike that became a major national story.

Dan Osborn speaks to striking Kellogg's factory workers in 2021. — Dan Osborn speaks to striking Kellogg’s factory workers in 2021.

(Dan Osborn/Facebook)

Kellogg’s fired him two years later after accusing him of watching Netflix while on the job, a charge he believes was a pretense for retaliating against him for his union activities. He happened to lose his job in the lead-up to an election cycle when both of Nebraska’s Senate seats would be on the ballot. Osborn opted to run as an independent against incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer, who was not facing a Democratic challenger.

“Seeing how we were getting screwed by our bosses kind of lit a fire under me,” he told the American Prospect in 2024.

Fischer had won her previous bid for reelection by nearly 20 percentage points and looked to be a shoo-in for another term in the overwhelmingly Republican state. But Osborn’s unpolished, everyman style and willingness to criticize both major political parties struck a nerve with voters, raising speculation that he just might have a real chance. By Election Day, polls showed him trailing by as little as a single percentage point. Those surveys proved to overstate how close the contest really was. In the end, Fischer won reelection by about 6.5 points.

Though the race didn’t end up being particularly close, it was far tighter than Nebraska’s other Senate contest that same year. In that race, Ricketts defeated his Democratic challenger by more than 25 percentage points.

When Osborn declared his interest in running again this year, Democrats once again chose to give him a clear runway to challenge Ricketts. The Democratic primary winner, Cindy Burbank, promptly withdrew from the race after being named her party’s nominee. The Nebraska Democratic Party has urged voters to back Osborn as “the best opportunity to defeat Pete Ricketts.”

What does he stand for?

The question of what Osborn stands for may be just as important as the question of who he will stand with if he gets elected to the Senate. There are currently two independents in the chamber, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Angus King of Maine. Both of them caucus with the Democrats, which means they generally work with Democrats on Senate business. Osborn has said he will handle things differently.

“We’re not going to caucus with either party. In fact, we’ll caucus with everybody, you could say,” he said during a press conference on Oct. 12. “Independent means independent.”

In an evenly divided Senate, Osborn’s vote could be the tiebreaker determining whether a Democrat or Republican serves as majority leader, a position that gives whoever holds it the power to influence which legislation comes to the floor, shape committee leadership and set the chamber’s legislative agenda.

In terms of policy, one of Osborn’s top goals is breaking what he’s called the “two-party doom loop” in Washington under Democrats and Republicans. He supports proposals to reduce the influence of money in politics, including overturning Citizens United, banning lawmakers from trading stocks and eliminating “dark money” in elections. He has also called for term limits and an age cap for members of Congress.

On social issues, Osborn largely believes in promoting individual freedom. Though he’s personally opposed to abortion, he supports restoring the protections established by Roe v. Wade. He’s a vocal advocate for gun rights, believes medical marijuana should be legal and wants to enact a nationwide “right to repair” policy for privately owned property.

Osborn also supports strong, humane immigration enforcement, reining in government spending, middle-class tax cuts, expanding the Affordable Care Act, breaking up corporate monopolies and ending foreign wars.

If elected to the Senate, Osborn’s independent streak could make him a key swing vote on a number of important issues, giving him substantial influence over which bills become law. That would be a significant contrast to Ricketts, whose vote aligned with Trump’s position 100% of the time last year, according to a tally from Roll Call.

What are his chances?

Osborn faces a steep challenge in his effort to oust Ricketts, even in a potential blue wave year. There are nearly the same number of registered Republicans in the state as there are voters from all other parties and independents combined.

Polling in the Nebraska Senate race has been relatively sparse compared with some of the other higher-profile contests across the country. The few polls that have been released mostly suggest that Osborn remains the underdog. Though one poll last month showed him slightly ahead, two other recent polls have had him behind by 3 to 5 percentage points.

At the same time, forecasters are still giving Osborn a genuine chance of winning. Last week, the nonpartisan Center for Politics shifted its rating for the race from Likely Republican to Leans Republican, suggesting the contest might have become tighter. The other major forecaster, the Cook Political Report, still classifies the race as a likely Republican victory.