An Independent candidate for the Senate: Challenging convention and attracting attention in Nebraska
The last Independent to represent Nebraska in the U. S. Senate was George W. Norris, who switched his party affiliation in 1937 after serving four terms in the Senate as a Republican.
(Iowa, like most states, never has elected an Independent to the U.S. Senate.)
Norris was the man who gave Nebraska public power (electricity), a one-house Legislature, and non-partisan elections for state legislators. The foundation of these radical ideas was more control for the people and less power for the political parties and big business.
The case has been made that at least into the 1950s, he was the greatest U.S. Senator ever to serve. The U.S. Senate created a select committee in 1955 to pick five outstanding former members of the Senate whose portraits would be displayed permanently in the Capital. A group of 160 distinguished historians and biographers was assembled to make the selections. George W. Norris was named by more panel members than any other Senator in history to that time.
Norris was the longest-serving U.S. Senator in Nebraska’s history – 30 years – and probably the most powerful man in Nebraska for many years. Given the positions he took, especially in his later years, it may be reasonable to guess that in today’s world, he might be attracted by the idea of term limits for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He might think that with railroad accidents increasingly threatening public safety through chemical spills, stronger railroad safety laws would make sense. He also might like the idea of keeping government out of our private lives.
And here we are in 2024. Nebraska has the first serious Independent challenger for a U.S. Senate seat since Norris’s time. Dan Osborn lists all three of the above items on the short list of just 12 issues in his platform. His platform also calls for supporting veterans and “securing the border,” although in a recent Zoom meeting with about 100 people who wanted to learn more about his candidacy, he argued for closing the border. On the other side of the political spectrum, his platform includes legalizing cannabis and “protecting middle-class jobs and wages.”
Nationwide, there are only three Independent members of the U.S. Senate – Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Angus King of Maine, and Kirsten Sinema of Arizona. Sanders and Sinema are more or less Democrats in Independents’ clothing. King comes from a state with a recent history of having elected Independent candidates.
Osborn is an industrial mechanic from Omaha. He has never before held or run for public office. He is not afraid to take positions on some issues that may trouble Republicans, and others that may trouble Democrats. He has said he supports abortion rights, while he also opposes a ban on assault weapons.
He is a candidate who believes in bipartisanship. He travels the state and likes to attend Republican events as well as Democratic events as he campaigns. He delivers the same message to both groups. He says he gets standing ovations from both.
There is no Democrat running for the Senate seat in Nebraska because the State Democratic Party decided that Osborn had the best chance to defeat Deb Fischer, the two-term Republican incumbent.
Osborn, 48, is a Navy veteran who also has served in the Army National Guard. He was a machinist who worked on industrial equipment at the Kellogg cereal plant in Omaha, where he became union president. In 2021, he led a strike that involved about 500 workers in Omaha and another 1,000 or so at other Kellogg sites. The strikers won, and Osborn is proud of having saved good middle-class jobs.
Now, he likes to say that he has been fixing things all his life and “almost anything broken can be fixed.” He includes the U.S. Senate this category.
He calls himself a voice for working-class people in Nebraska and around the country. He is not a newly arrived Independent looking for a way to challenge Republicans in a red state. He has been an Independent since 2016, he said, because he felt abandoned by both parties.
His campaign is attracting attention. In a new poll this week, he is running 4 points behind the Republian incumbent with 30 percent still undecided.
Osborn is married with three children and frequently has worked 50 and 60 hour weeks in his job. Last year, he earned $48,000, he told the recent Zoom meeting. He is planning to take a leave of absence from his job to begin campaigning more intensively in a few weeks.
Some of the other ideas on his short platform list include cutting taxes for small businesses and the middle class, lower taxes on overtime wages, protecting middle-class jobs and wages, supporting veterans, and no more soldiers on food stamps – raise serviceman pay.
Still, he is a long shot who will face numerous obstacles in today’s world. Money will be at the top of the list. It takes millions of dollars to win a Senate election. A couple of months ago, Osborn said he would need to raise $2 million, now, $5 million is being floated as the needed amount. Compounding this problem is the fact that he will not have an established political party to help fund his campaign.
Asked how he thinks he can beat the long odds against him, he told The New York Times in February, “I’ve gone up against a major American corporation. I stood up for what I thought was right, and I won.”
Kyrsten Sinema is also an independent senator. She left the Democratic Party at the end of 2022.