The Democratic nominee for Senate in Nebraska, Cindy Burbank, filed paperwork to withdraw from the general election on Friday, a move that could boost an independent candidate running against Senator Pete Ricketts, the Republican incumbent.
While unusual, Ms. Burbank’s decision has long been anticipated. Ms. Burbank said during the primary that if Dan Osborn, the independent candidate backed by the Nebraska Democratic Party, qualified for the ballot, she would drop out to clear the way for him. On Thursday, the secretary of state announced that he had qualified.
Ms. Burbank’s effort to exit the race could face obstacles from Republican state officials. A representative for Bob Evnen, Nebraska’s secretary of state, who is a Republican, said his office would ask the state’s attorney general if Ms. Burbank should be allowed to bow out, the Nebraska Examiner reported. Mr. Evnen’s office did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The New York Times on Saturday.
Mr. Evnen had previously booted Ms. Burbank from the primary ballot but was forced to reinstate her after she won a lawsuit over the move.
“I’ve looked at the numbers. I won’t be your next senator,” Ms. Burbank said in a video posted to social media on Friday in which she thanked her supporters. “So I have withdrawn my bid for U.S. Senate.” She did not mention Mr. Osborn or Mr. Ricketts by name.
Ms. Burbank’s campaign website calls Mr. Osborn “a good man, a working man, a strike leader, and someone we can trust,” and says, “He deserves a fair shot against Ricketts.”
Democrats need to pick up four seats to win back the Senate majority, and both parties are looking for any edge they can find to put pressure on the other side. Mr. Ricketts is favored to win in Nebraska, but Mr. Osborn, who received more votes than the Democratic presidential nominee in the state when he ran for the Senate in 2024, is seen as a wild card who could make the race more competitive this fall.
Mr. Ricketts’s deputy campaign manager, Max Oberg, on Friday accused Mr. Osborn of having “rigged yet another party’s ballot because he is the Democrats’ nominee.”
In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Osborn’s campaign said that he was not coordinating with Ms. Burbank.
“Dan Osborn is running as an independent specifically because he believes both parties have broken our political system,” said Camilo Vilaseca, Mr. Osborn’s campaign manager. “Dan Osborn has no interest in or knowledge of the Democrat Party primary or nominee, no matter how many times Pete repeats his own fairy tales,” he added, referring to Mr. Ricketts.
Contests in other red states also feature left-leaning independents. In Montana, where the independent Senate candidate, Seth Bodnar, is broadly seen as more electable than the Democrat, many Democrats hoped that their own nominee, Alani Bankhead, would do what Ms. Burbank did. But Ms. Bankhead recently shut down that idea.
In Nebraska, Ms. Burbank documented her withdrawal filing in another video on social media. As a rock song plays, she turns in her paperwork to the secretary of state, flashes a grin and speeds off on a bronze three-wheel motorcycle.
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