It’s not too hard to find Democrats who are convinced — and who want to convince you — that the GOP is likely to fumble away a likely Senate majority, because incumbent Republican senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska is on the verge of losing to “independent” Dan Osborn.
On paper, there is no Democratic candidate in this race. (Nebraska has a second U.S. Senate race this year, where appointed Republican senator Pete Ricketts is expected to cruise to a full term against Democratic nominee Preston Love Jr. )
In reality, Osborn is the Democratic candidate in this race; he’s the kind of pro-choice, “reasonable gun safety measures”-backing “independent” who fundraises through ActBlue, gets glowing profiles in the American Prospect and Rolling Stone and warm endorsements from Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and who declares, “The system is rigged. We all know it. The only people who can afford to run for Senate full-time are millionaires like my opponent.”
Osborn said on the issue of illegal immigration and the border:
We need some meaningful immigration reform. These people are our friends. They’re our neighbors. A lot of them have been here 30 years or more, and I think it’s time they get into Social Security already. There’s 80,000 open jobs in Nebraska that we can’t fill, that we can certainly use immigrant labor for. We need more immigration lawyers and judges, and we have to streamline the process, but at the same time, we do have to vet people. We don’t want to just allow willy-nilly people through that could be dangerous.
When asked which party he would caucus with, he told Semafor, “I’ve been giving that a lot of thought. I certainly am interested in challenging the system. I’m an independent; I’m not going to be a member of either party in the Senate. Everybody is going to try to influence how I vote, but I’m not going to join a party.”
And you can find a couple recent polls that put Osborn right behind Fischer in a mostly deep-red state. A late August SurveyUSA poll put Fischer up by just one percentage point, and a poll commissioned by Osborn’s campaign put the Democrat within two percentage points.
That SurveyUSA poll had Trump winning the state overall, 54 percent to 37 percent, but losing the second congressional district, 42 percent to 47 percent. (Nebraska allocates one electoral vote to each congressional district. Four years ago, Biden beat Trump there.)
Note that polling by Fischer’s campaign in July put her ahead, 50 percent to 24 percent.
Even a narrow win for Fischer would be a shock; in 2018 she won reelection 58 percent to 39 percent, and in 2012 she won 58 percent to 42 percent.
There are a couple reasons to be skeptical of the nascent Obsorn hype. For starters, do you envision a two-term Republican incumbent senator struggling to win when Trump is winning the state by 17 percentage points, as the SurveyUSA poll indicated?
Second, if Osborn really is neck-and-neck with Fischer, the people who follow Senate races for a living aren’t buying it yet. The Cook Political Report rates this race “solid Republican.” Inside Elections does the same. Both the Wall Street Journal and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate this race “safe Republican.” CNN did not list Nebraska on its list of the ten Senate seats most likely to flip parties. The New York Times briefly mentioned Osborn as a “long shot.” Never mind expecting Fischer to lose; none of these analysts have yet seen any reason to move the race out of their categories of least competitive.
Third, if Osborn is on the verge of pulling off the biggest shock since Dave Brat beat Eric Cantor . . . where’s all the Democratic money?
Beto O’Rourke and Jaime Harrison and others have demonstrated that grassroots Democrats love to open their wallets for a U.S. Senate challenger who gives them hope of winning in deep-red territory. As of the end of June, Osborn had raised $1.6 million. (By comparison, Fischer had raised $6.2 million and had four and a half times as much cash on hand.)
Fourth, if Osborn is on the verge of pulling off the biggest upset in years, where’s all the help from the national Democrats? In June, the DNC announced it “will spend $40,000 to fund a political staffer who will work with national, state and local Democrats in Nebraska.” A staffer! Don’t worry, Osborn, the cavalry is coming!
Finally, that SurveyUSA poll found that 42 percent of Nebraskans hadn’t heard anything about Osborn, and one-third of his own supporters answered that they hadn’t heard anything about him. In a bit of a “Jeff Johnson, the name you know” phenomenon, did some respondents think that Dan Osborn is actually former GOP congressman and Nebraska Cornhusker head coach Tom Osborne?