BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — In the back room of a brewery in southeastern Nebraska, more than three dozen people crowded together this summer to hear from Dan Osborn, a former cereal plant worker and independent running for U.S.
Senate. The standing-room-only crowd in the small town of Beatrice was larger than Osborn expected, but it stood out for more than its size. Those attending ranged from supporters of former President Donald Trump wearing “Make America Great Again” hats to voters firmly backing Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats.
Osborn’s message to all of them was that America’s two-party system has let them down. “There’s nobody like me in the United States Senate,” he told the crowd. “Right now, the Senate is a country club of millionaires that work for billionaires.
” Osborn has cobbled together a campaign in deeply conservative Nebraska that rejects both major political parties as part of a broken system. For a guy who held his first campaign news conferences out of the garage of his suburban Omaha home, he has surprised pundits by emerging as a serious challenger to two-term Republican Sen. Deb Fischer in what had been considered a safe Republican seat only months ago.
The contest has attracted $21 million in spending from outside groups, favoring Osborn, and even Fischer's campaign acknowledges that the race is closer than expected. There is no Democratic candidate running, but a win for Osborn could disrupt Republican plans to reclaim.
