NE-SEN: A Sleeper Senate Race Tightens in Nebraska as an Independent Gains

Over the past two decades, Republicans have consolidated a near monopoly in the Great Plains, a shift across a stretch of prairie once dominated by Democrats that could become complete in November if Senator Jon Tester of Montana loses his seat.

But this year, Nebraska has thrown Republicans for a loop. Mr. Osborn’s dark-horse, grass-roots campaign has transformed what was expected to be a sleepy race into a late-breaking and high-stakes clash that has forced Ms. Fischer and her allies to invest millions of dollars to avoid an upset.

In the Omaha suburbs, one of Republicans’ most battle-tested incumbents in Congress, Representative Don Bacon, is facing stiff headwinds, thanks to his party’s lurch to the right and his recent endorsement of eliminating a provision that awards an electoral vote to the party that wins his district. The result has been an influx of cash into Mr. Bacon’s increasingly liberal district, leaving him in an uphill fight for political survival.

In the Senate contest, Mr. Osborn is tapping into a well of discontent with Congress and leaning on his status as a political newcomer and his background as a union laborer to appeal to working-class voters from across the political spectrum. He has eschewed any connection with Democrats, rejecting an endorsement from the Nebraska Democratic Party this year and insisting that he would not caucus with either party if elected.



https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/us/politics/nebraska-senate-osborn-fischer.html