Independent candidate Dan Osborn and the Democratic Party have publicly kept each other at arm’s length during the Navy veteran’s run for Republican Sen. Deb Fischer’s seat in Nebraska.
But behind the scenes, Democrats and their allies are doing plenty to try to get him elected in the unexpectedly competitive Senate race.
A review of campaign materials, finance documents and internal discussions among Democrats reveal that Osborn and a super PAC backing his candidacy are partially reliant on groups and donors who normally work for Democratic candidates.
It’s an arrangement that is making an issue of whether Osborn’s promise to vote like neither party is a political tactic meant to win over skeptical voters in a state where the Democratic Party is deeply unpopular or a genuine commitment to govern like a centrist who takes votes that regularly anger liberals and other Democrats.
Osborn has praised liberal icon Bernie Sanders and collected contributions on a fundraising platform designed to help progressive candidates. That money has helped him turn the once-sleepy Senate race against Fischer into one getting national attention six weeks before Election Day. A survey of Nebraska voters in late August released last week by the super PAC supporting Osborn, called Retire Career Politicians, found the two candidates in a statistical dead heat, with Fischer ahead 43% to 42%.
Retire Career Politicians used one of the Democratic Party’s marquee polling firms, Global Strategy Group, to conduct the poll. The super PAC, which has also run ads in support of Osborn, has received a $300,000 contribution from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which funds liberal causes nationwide and, as a nonprofit, does not have to disclose its donors.
Osborn’s campaign has also caught the attention of top Democrats in Washington. In a call with donors last week, Christie Roberts, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, highlighted the candidate’s working-class background and suggested the GOP was concerned about the state of the race.
“What’s interesting about this race is I think Dan Osborn has exactly the kind of biography that can cut across party lines, and his message is really focused on how can government work for working people and working families and not for just corporate special interests all the time,” Roberts said, according to a recording of her conversation obtained by NOTUS.
The contest, she added, is “certainly one that for folks who just love politics, and love the most interesting races, it’s one to keep an eye on.”
A Democrat with knowledge of the call said Roberts was responding to a question from a participant on the donor call and gave a “general overview” of the race. She did not solicit donations for Osborn’s race, the source said.
The DSCC has not endorsed Osborn’s campaign. Asked about Osborn’s campaign last week, DSCC Chairman Gary Peters said he wasn’t involved with the race “in any shape or form.”
Osborn, who was a member of the Army National Guard after serving in the Navy, was a local union leader before beginning his campaign, one he says is meant to eschew partisan labels and do what’s best for blue-collar and middle-class families.
In a statement, an Osborn official said the candidate was trying to end the “two-party doom loop” and was ready to “work with anyone to close the border, bring down inflation, protect individual freedoms, and deliver for regular Nebraskans.”
“Ninety-eight percent of our campaign funds come from contributions that are under $200, and Dan does not take a dime of corporate PAC money,” Evan Schmeits, Osborn’s campaign manager, said. “This is a completely different type of campaign that doesn’t fit into a neat box of red versus blue.”
Some members of Osborn’s campaign, like spokesperson Dustin Wahl and adviser Dan Parsons, have worked for Republicans before, according to a campaign official. They added that many of the candidate’s volunteers are Republicans.
Campaigns cannot legally coordinate with super PACs like Retire Career Politicians, whose decisions are made independently. Osborn advisers argue that this separation means they should not be held accountable for who controls those groups or whom they raise money for. Officials from Retire Career Politicians did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The campaign itself, however, has also relied on entities that normally work on behalf of Democratic candidates. The campaign partnered with the online fundraising behemoth ActBlue, for instance, even paying for ActBlue to promote Osborn’s fundraising page on Google. And the campaign has commissioned surveys from Public Policy Polling, another firm closely associated with liberal candidates and groups.
Osborn advisers counter that his campaign does not just use Democratic firms. It also contracts with some firms that work for Republican clients, like Red Wave Strategy Group, and nonpartisan fundraising platforms like Donorbox.
But skeptics say the support Osborn receives from Democratic donors and operatives — both solicited and unsolicited — could influence his decisions in office, out of a debt he feels to those constituencies or a recognition that he’ll need their tacit support again in a future run for office.
“Like his hero Bernie Sanders, Dan Osborn calls himself an independent rather than a Democrat. But it’s clear based on Osborn’s dark money Democrat megadonors that he is, in fact, a Democrat, and maybe even a socialist based on his effusive praise for Bernie Sanders,” said Mike Berg, spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s political arm.
Berg was referencing a Washington Examiner story from last week that reported the independent candidate had praised Sanders, a progressive hero whom Osborn said had sent money in 2021 to striking workers at a Kellogg’s plant. Osborn had helped lead the strike, and at the time, the strike had gained bipartisan support in the state, including from then-Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican.
Osborn’s campaign has alarmed Republicans in Washington, who are counting on Fischer to win her reelection and help the party regain majority control of the Senate. This month, a super PAC affiliated with the GOP started running ads against Osborn. And Fischer’s own campaign has targeted the independent candidate with negative ads, a tactic that indicates she thinks the race is competitive.
Osborn, for his part, has not always been on good terms with Nebraska Democrats. After the state’s May primary, he said he would not seek an endorsement from the state’s Democratic Party, angering Democrats who thought he would be the party’s de facto nominee this year even if he is technically an independent. No Democratic candidate is on the ballot this year in the Senate race against Fischer.
Still, despite some initial hard feelings, Democratic officials in the state praise his campaign.
“He really decided to run an independent campaign where he is reaching out to independents, Republicans and Democrats,” said Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party.
Kleeb added that even though the state party has not endorsed Osborn, it is still including him in a newspaper it delivers to the state’s voters, singling him out as the best choice against Fischer.
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Alex Roarty is a reporter at NOTUS.