Brian Bengs knows that any independent run for elected office — much less one for the U.S. Senate — is a daunting task.
So when he was considering this winter whether to start a campaign in South Dakota, Bengs sought advice from the man who did it best last year: Dan Osborn, the union worker turned independent in Nebraska who ran a surprisingly strong race against an incumbent senator.
Osborn spoke highly of his experience in 2024, Bengs recalled, and encouraged the South Dakotan to run. Months later, Bengs launched his own independent bid.
“He was very influential,” Bengs told NOTUS. “Had he said, ‘No, don’t do it,’ I probably would not have done it.”
Bengs is part of a wave of independent candidates running for office this year — many of whom say they were inspired by Osborn’s campaign.
In Idaho, independent candidate Todd Achilles is challenging Sen. Jim Risch. In Mississippi, Ty Pinkins is running an independent bid against Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. Osborn is also running again, this time against Sen. Pete Ricketts in Nebraska. And nonpartisan gubernatorial candidates have emerged in states like California and Michigan. All four independent senate candidates are on a group chat, occasionally swapping campaign advice and offering personal encouragement over text messages.
Even more independents are expected to announce their candidacies as the midterm elections draw closer, including in House races, according to advocates for independent candidates
“There are going to be more independents running this cycle than ever before,” said Adam Brandon, a senior adviser to Independent PAC, a national group formed to boost independent campaigns.
Each of the past three elections has seen at least one notable independent Senate candidate challenge a Republican incumbent. It’s uncertain whether any of the four candidates running next year, including Osborn, can even come close to matching the Nebraska politician’s success of 2024 — much less win the race.
But the proliferation of independents this cycle reflects a growing frustration among voters with both parties and increased willingness to consider alternatives at the ballot box, advocates of independent candidacies say. Candidates are more willing to consider shunning both parties than before because they think voters are more likely to reward them for doing so.
That’s in no small part because of how they saw Nebraska voters respond last year, said Dustin Wahl, who worked on Osborn’s campaign in 2024.
“What Dan did was light a match and come a lot closer than people expected,” he said. “And now people are realizing, ‘Oh, there’s an opportunity for me as well.’”
Republicans are quick to point out that in most cases, the independents are former Democrats running in red states against Republican challengers (Bengs, Achilles and Pinkins had previously run races as Democrats). They argue that these office seekers are independent only on the surface and otherwise hold views aligned with the Democratic Party.
But they also said they’d take all of the campaigns seriously as electoral threats in 2026.
“We’ve told everyone from the beginning that this is a very real threat and they need to treat it seriously,” said a national Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Osborn-like candidates might also spread beyond Senate races. In Colorado’s 5th Congressional District, Matt Cavanaugh, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army, is moving closer to launching an independent bid in a district held by Republican Rep. Jeff Crank.
“I’m getting pretty dang close,” Cavanaugh said in an interview. “The headlines as we go day by day almost feel like they’re getting worse, if that’s possible.”
Cavanaugh, who said he would make a decision before October, shared proposed sketches of his potential campaign logo with NOTUS and spoke at length about the opportunity he thought independent candidates could have next year to find an unprecedented level of success.
“We’re at a point where both parties are unpopular, to say the least,” he said. “The Democratic Party is as unpopular as it’s ever been in the last three decades, and the Republican Party is as well. It feels to a lot of people like this is a nation of builders but is being run by arsonists at the top.”
One Democratic candidate, Jessica Killin, is already running for the Colorado seat, which Inside Elections rates as “likely Republican.” Democrats consider the 5th District a longshot, but one that could become competitive if the political environment shifts strongly against Republicans next year.
Cavanaugh said his own bid was in part inspired by Osborn and Yemi Mobolade, who won an election to become mayor of Colorado Springs as an independent candidate in 2023. (Colorado Springs is in the 5th District.)
“Folks like Osborn and Yemi are showing you can shed that affiliation, you can still win, you can make a real difference and make some noise and change things,” Cavanaugh said.
Brandon, the senior adviser to Independent PAC, said he expects a wave of additional House candidates to announce campaigns before next year’s general election, including some who will wait until the summer of 2026 to declare.
At the gubernatorial level, Mike Duggan, the former Democratic mayor of Detroit, is running as an independent in Michigan in 2026. Ethan Penner, another independent candidate, is running for governor of California.
Even if voters are broadly frustrated with both parties, it won’t be easy for any of the candidates to become serious contenders, especially those running at the federal level where voters generally make their pick based on ideology.
Osborn, who lost to Republican Sen. Deb Fischer but earned nearly 47% of the vote, was successful in part because Democrats stood down from running their own candidate and eventually tacitly supported the independent’s bid. His campaign also caught Republicans off guard, something GOP operatives vow won’t happen next year.
But the independent candidates running now — Osborn, Achilles, Bengs and Pinkins — say they think they can perform better.
Osborn’s campaign offered a template for other candidates across the country, Achilles said.
“It was an inspiration for me and a lot of others,” the Idaho independent said. “I think Dan showed there was a demand for something between the parties. And as we tested that concept here in Idaho, we found the same kind of reaction.”