Nebraska’s Dan Osborn is returning to work Tuesday as a steamfitter after his unsuccessful Senate run, but his political career isn’t over.
Osborn, who ran as an independent, is launching a political action committee, called the Working Class Heroes Fund, to support working-class candidates of all parties. And he isn’t ruling out another run for office after his loss to GOP Sen. Deb Fischer.
“That is definitely something we’re taking a look at,” Osborn said in a phone interview Monday when he was asked whether he is considering running for the Senate again in two years. GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts won a special election this month to serve out the final two years of former Sen. Ben Sasse’s term and is up for a full term in 2026.
Osborn previewed a possible case against Ricketts, a wealthy former governor, name-checking him as an example of how much influence the rich can have on politics.
“I think the country has an appetite for what it is we built here in Nebraska. I want to capitalize on that,” Osborn said, adding later, “Pete Ricketts has effectively been able to buy the Nebraska state Legislature, because they have — I mean, they own the Chicago Cubs, for crying out loud. That’s how much money they have.
“So we have to have other entities that are for the working people to combat these huge corporate entities, this huge wealth that we have to fight to get a seat at the table,” Osborn said.
Osborn did perform better than Vice President Kamala Harris, losing to Fischer by 7 percentage points as former President Donald Trump won Nebraska by about 21 points.
For now, Osborn is focused on building up the new PAC. Osborn said his PAC will support candidates of any party, and he said he didn’t expect to have many policy litmus tests, apart from supporting campaign finance overhaul and rejecting corporate donations.
“I’m creating this PAC because I want to help other veterans and independents. And not just independents, but also Republicans or Democrats or Libertarians or Legalize Marijuana Now Party — I don’t care,” Osborn said. “People who are nurses, teachers, carpenters, plumbers, bus drivers, people like that run for office. And I want to let them know that there’s an avenue where they can try to emulate the same thing that we did here in Nebraska.”
Osborn said that he is interested in mentoring candidates and that the PAC will also support them financially. His Senate campaign raised $7.9 million through mid-October, according to the latest campaign finance reports, and he said it ultimately raised more than $14 million.
The Working Class Heroes Fund will be a so-called hybrid PAC, which can work directly with candidates and, via a separate arm, launch independent ad campaigns backing them. Osborn said he hopes to help candidates combat “lies,” arguing that false accusations about his position on border policy led to his defeat.
Osborn saw firsthand the financial barriers working-class candidates can face. He ultimately took a leave of absence from his work as a steamfitter in the spring to focus on the race, and he drew $21,000 in salary from the campaign, which is permitted under campaign finance regulations.
“I’m very optimistic, because I feel like, you know, that I’ve forged a way forward for people that want to do it,” Osborn said, adding later, “We already have the framework and the blueprint for them to do it, so it wouldn’t — it shouldn’t — be as hard for the next person, because we’ve already been there and done that.”
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