Navy Veteran Dan Osborn Hopeful Nebraskans Will Vote for Independent Senate Candidate This November
Dan Osborn has been politically independent since he first registered to partake in the electoral process. Years later, and on his second bid to go to Washington, he maintains that middle-of-the-road status.
Osborn recently spoke with Military.com about his U.S. Senate campaign and efforts taking place between now and November to unseat incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, in Nebraska. Osborn and Ricketts are the only two candidates, with many statewide Democrats essentially throwing support behind the military veteran.
The Navy veteran is trying to strike gold in a state with a nonpartisan unicameral that lacks two legislative houses. Osborn said Nebraskans have an inherent independent lean as a result.
In 2024, Osborn was in a similar situation when he faced Republican Deb Fischer in the U.S. Senate race. She defeated him by roughly 7 percentage points, garnering approximately 499,100 votes to his 436,500 votes.
“I did 200 public events in 2024 when I ran,” Osborn told Military.com about his current campaign. “We’re on a 93-county tour right now. I’ve been to 55 counties, we’ve done well over 100 public town halls. The No. 1 issue is always the cost of everything.”
Osborn’s Military Roots
Osborn hails from a long line of military service members.
His grandfather was in the Navy and fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Both his parents met while in the Navy, and his uncles were also in the service. Osborn’s brother was in the Marine Corps, which he jokes led to a cutting off of contact.
Osborn joined right out of high school, spending four years on the USS Constellation and did two Western Pacific cruises aboard that ship that included a six-month deployment in the Persian Gulf area.
He exited service with an honorable discharge and then joined the Nebraska Army National Guard to continue his service. He said the military’s been “a huge part of my life.”
“From the time you get off that bus in boot camp, and you’re like, ‘Holy crap, what the hell did I sign up for?’ it starts to change you, for very good reason,” he said. “You’re a part of something bigger than yourself. You have a mission to perform. You have tasks every day. You get up early. You go to bed late, and you and you work through it. And then you work as a team.
“That discipline it instilled in me, you couldn’t shake it if you wanted to. It’s still you. You get up and you make your bed every day, and you go through your day performing…as a bigger mission.”
Finding a Path in Civilian Life
Osborn got another honorable discharge from the Guard at the same time he was going to the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
“My life changed because my wife and I had our first daughter, and I needed a job with some insurance and some decent pay because diapers are expensive,” he said. “Kids are expensive, so I dropped out of college.”
He went into the workforce working as an industrial mechanic at Kellogg’s, where he spent 20 years and in the Grain Millers Union (Local 50-G) which includes the bakery, confectionery, tobacco and grain milling industries.
Osborn worked his way up to president, saying that his origin story into politics began with the COVID pandemic.
“During COVID, we were working seven days a week, 12 hours a day,” he said. “Actually, at one point in time, 50% of our workforce was forced to quarantine and/or sick, but we kept all four plants around the country running at 100% capacity.”
The plant never shut down and, in turn, their CEO made record profits hovering around $21 billion and gave himself a raise.
“Everybody got rich,” he added. “I got no problem with that. We made our money, too. The problem was at the end of that, our contract expired and Kellogg’s told us that they’re taking our health insurance, our cost of living adjustment, only formal wage increases, and then they’re going to implement a two-tier wage system with no path for a lower-tier employee to move up.”
So, we did what I always do. We fought for our rights and our wages that generations of workers had earned before us.
After some 27 days they received a fair contract and went back to work. Osborn said he “had a big target on my back” since he was the one speaking with the media and voicing the discontent. He was fired shortly thereafter.
It led to him becoming a union steamfitter, which he’s been doing since 2021.
Why He’s Running (Again)
Osborn said that one of the reasons he’s running again in 2026 is due to Nebraska’s relationship with the railroad industry. Or, it at least used to be.
There are “tons of rail workers throughout the state,” he said, all the way from the eastern side of the state to the western side. But they were extremely upset with the federal delegation and the way they vote on rail, “always putting profit before people.”
Naturally, Osborn began looking more in-depth into money across all politics. Today, in what he described as the “pay-to-play world in Washington D.C.,” races in states including Texas, Florida, Ohio and Michigan have become routine for $100 million campaigns just to get elected.
“That’s insane,” he said. “And you look at who’s funding campaigns, it’s corporations. And then, of course, the elected official turns around and does their bidding. Well, I want to put a stop to that. I know Citizens United is a Supreme Court ruling, so it’s not like you can just go in and change it. … You can donate an unlimited amount of money to an independent expenditure. That’s corruption.”
The money is one thing, he added, but representation is also lacking. He argues that the vast majority of elected officials in both the House and Senate couldn’t be described as working-class people.
“I believe these seats belong to the workers of this country, and I aim to give it back to them,” he said.
Differences Between Osborn and Pete Ricketts
Osborn is staunch in his conviction that the United States and most citizens are “at the apex of that two-party doom loop.”
He believes he has a shot to win versus Ricketts, the state’s former governor, because Osborn’s long adopted an independent spirit in the mold of Abraham Lincoln—where a government does what the people want and not vice versa.
“I feel like right now we’re a government for the 1% and the corporations and the special interests that pull the purse strings,” he said. “That’s what keeps me getting up every day and fighting for this cause.”
Osborn also said that others can empathize with him. He said he and others know what it’s like to put Christmas gifts on a credit card, or work 60 to 80 hours per week with throbbing body parts.
“In contrast, my opponent, the family owns a professional baseball team,” Osborn said. “His dad bought him a governorship, wasn’t good enough. Bought him a Senate seat, wasn’t good enough. Bought him a baseball team, wasn’t good enough.
It’s a stark contrast between him and I. Look at his background and the way he’s taking votes. He’s always going to be on the side of the corporations versus the people, and that includes farmers.”
Ricketts recently issued a statement seeming to shy away from the Trump administration’s actions impacting farmers and cattle ranchers, and the nation’s broader beef prices.
“I appreciate the administration’s work to lower grocery prices,” he said. “Short-term policy shifts do not equal long-term solutions. Flooding the market with lower quality beef compromises Nebraska farmers and ranchers. They should be enabled to grow herd sizes and meet consumer demand.”
