The New Yorker Radio Hour - Dan Osborn, the Independent Senate Candidate Who Could Tip Nebraska

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

As control of the Senate hangs in the balance, many eyes are on Dan Osborn, of Nebraska. He’s a dream candidate for the Democrats: a mechanic in the food-processing industry, a former president of his local union, and a veteran of the Navy and the Army National Guard. But Osborn isn’t a Democrat; he’s running as an independent. Polls show a close or tied race with the Republican incumbent, Pete Ricketts, an heir to a financial fortune. David Remnick talks with Osborn about leading a strike at a Kellogg’s plant; how Donald Trump’s tariffs are affecting voters in an agricultural state; and Osborn’s decision to not caucus with either party if he wins the seat. Further reading:  “Can the Democrats Take Back the Senate?,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin   New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. When you look at the current makeup of Congress and the Senate in particular, Democrats have got a big numbers problem. For a generation or more, they've been concentrating in big urban areas, leaving more rural states trending heavily Republican. Now, we often hear the Democrats are fighting to be competitive in parts of the country, where they've already been counted out. But that's easier said than done. With partisanship so high in the country,

that means winning over voters who are not just skeptical, but hostile. Right now, it's a government for the 1% and the corporations, and I think we're fed up. Dan Osborne of Nebraska would probably be a dream candidate for the Democrats. He's a blue-collar mechanic in the food processing industry. He's a union leader, an economic populist,

and a veteran of the Navy and the Army National Guard. But Osborne isn't a Democrat, and he doesn't want to associate with either party. He's running as an independent, which is not an easy choice for him, because it makes fundraising and generally running a campaign a great deal harder. And yet polls are showing that Dan Osborne is running neck and neck with Pete Ricketts,

the Republican incumbent in a very Republican state. The Democratic nominee in the race just stepped aside to clear the field for Osborne. I sat down with Dan Osborne recently to talk about the Senate and his race and how he got into politics in the first place. Dan, some people know your story well, particularly if they're in Nebraska,

but you're about to run for Senate, and I just wonder how you got into politics. You're a union guy. I love to know your working history and how you decided to make this leap. Yeah. Well, if you don't mind, I would like to go back to graduating high school. Okay, okay.

Because I went into the Navy. I've always felt compelled to serve. I then met my wife. We had our first daughter, and my life changed. And I was like, man, I need a job with some insurance, right? It's easy to take care of yourself, but as soon as you have to start taking care of somebody else. So I went into the workforce, dropped out of college, and started working at Kellogg's as an industrial mechanic. One of the first days on the job, an old guy by the name Ron Jabowski, old Polish guy.

He looked like Tom Selleck from Magnum P.I. I'm dating myself again. These kids probably don't know. We'll explain. We'll have line in notes. There you go. You know, we were wrenching on a machine, and he looked over at me and he said, hey, kid, have you joined the union yet. I said, no, sir, I have not.

He's like, well, you might want to think about doing that. And I said, well, crap, Tom Selleck's telling me to join the union, I'd better go do that. Nebraska's right to work. What were you making at Kellogg's at that time? At that time, I was making, this was in 2002, roughly. I was making $19 an hour. And then, you know, I joined the union. I just worked hard.

And I kept my head down for a lot of years, just going to work. Well, old guys like Ron used to take care of the union business. And we started to lose on some contracts. Those guys started to retire. And so I wanted to get involved. So I ran for executive board of my local. I got elected as vice president. About three months later, the president stepped down

because you get yelled at a lot in that role by both your members and management alike, but I knew the role was important, so I assumed it. When you say you lost some contracts, what does that mean? 2015, we made a lot of concessions. It was a two-tier wage system

was the massive one. That was a killer for us. So now you have somebody working right next to you making half the wages you are. and a different insurance policy. So during COVID, we were all working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, that whole year, no time off. In fact, at one point in time, 50% of our workforce was forced quarantine and or sick. But we kept all four of those plants running at maximum capacity.

The CEO gave himself a $2 million raise. The board insurich themselves, stock buybacks, capitalism working at its finest, got no problem with that. The problem I had was our contract expired at the end of that year. And they sat across the negotiating table from us, and they said, we're going to take your health insurance. We're going to take your cost of living adjustment, our only form of wage increases, designed to keep us even with inflation. And then we're going to implement a two-tier wage system that's permanent with no path for a lower-tier employee to go to the upper tier. And so for me as president, that was my own crap moment. And this is really where my story begins in politics.

I cut my teeth in politics on the picket line. The strike was 77 days. It's a long strike. Yeah. It's a long time not to get paid. Did you get popular support? We did. Yeah.

I mean, Joe Biden came out and talked about our strike. Our favorability rating or union's favorability rating around the country was some of the polling data that we saw. And sentiment was about 72% were in favor of what we were trying to do. What kind of contract did you come to? What kind of agreement? I believe it was a 3% raise over five years. It wasn't a ton. We weren't asking for a ton.

We, you know, and the two-tier wage system, we were able to negotiate more lower-tier employees to go to the upper tier yearly, and we held our insurance. Now, you ran two years ago for Senate, and you came up short. What's different about the political climate now that you think will make your candidate to see more of a possibility? Fundamentally, the difference is my opponent. You know, in 2024, I ran against Deb Fisher. I had no name recognition. I mean, I took the truth that wagering people deserve a seat at the table in Washington, D.C., pretty simple.

And I took that out. I did over 200 public town halls in Nebraska and just learned everything I know right now from people of Nebraska and their towns, from boots on the ground. And we turned that into 47 percent of the vote. Right. But you came up short by six points. Six points. Even though in the same state, Trump won by 20, I think. Yes.

Yeah. So we did well. So that was encouraging. It was, yeah. And, you know, so fast forward to 2026. And I have to decide now, am I going to do this again? Because it's hard, right? Especially for, this is why less than 2% of our elected officials in the House and Senate come from the working class because it's hard.

I don't have a law firm that can go run itself, why I go run around. around the state. When you say it's hard, you mean personally hard. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, well, I'm getting ready to remortgage my house so I can pay my bills. That's probably unique for Senate candidates. Yeah, and last Friday, I just quit my job as a pipe fitter so I can campaign full-time.

What does politics look like to you? When you look at the Senate, the way it's composed, what its concerns are, the language it speaks, where do you think it's failing you? Robin Williams, the late comedian. He said it best. He said, our politicians should be wearing NASCAR jackets with patches of their sponsors, so we know how they're going to vote. It's the money. It's the corrupting money.

Citizens United. Corporations are not people. Money's not free speech. You shouldn't be able to donate an unlimited amount of money to an independent expenditure. That's how Elon must pump $300 million into the election. That is too much influence and control. And you can almost relate every single issue that we are going to talk about. and people talk about to a money interest at some point, right?

So if you want to work in Washington, D.C., and you want to continue, especially in the House where you've got to run every two years, and I was told a House member spends four hours every single day just dial in for dollars, how are you supposed to be effective? And who are you going to be working for? Are you going to be working for the people that got you elected that voted for you, or are you going to be working for the people giving you money so you can continue to work, right? It's a dichotomy that doesn't work.

But I got to ask you, how are you going to get money to run? Well, I don't take corporate PAC money. My average donation is $48, and I've received small dollar donations from all 50 states. So my campaign is powered by the people. Why do you want to run as an independent and not either a Democrat or Republican? I've always been an independent from the time I could register to vote. I grew up a very conservative household. My dad actually sent me trick-or-treating when I'm a Republican.

I was a kid dressed as George Bush Sr. But I knew when I went off on my own into the Navy that I didn't line up with everything that he lined up with. How would you differentiate your politics from your dads? Well, I would say that, well, first of all, where we do line up is being fiscally conservative. But wait a minute, fiscal conservatives, though, they don't want even rich people paying all that much tax. Do you want to see that? I want to see people pay their fairs. share. What does that mean? Well, and here's the thing, because you look at Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, and you look at their tax bracket and how much they pay, it's hardly anything. I'm not going to go into the statistics of what I owe this year, but I'm getting killed. That's one of the reasons I have

to remortgage my house to pay my taxes. So on that issue, but on that issue, you send awfully a lot, forgive me, on that issue, you sound awfully a lot like a populist Democrat. Where do you differentiate yourself from that side of it? If you want to put labels on it, we can just put labels on it. But at the end of the day, for me personally, when I earn a certain wage and I get taxed a certain percentage off that certain wage, if you're on the other end of that and you're just clicking a keyboard and you're making millions of dollars on stock buybacks and dividends, why isn't that an earning as well? And why isn't that taxed at the same rate I'm taxed at? It's just people making money, regardless of whether it's, I do it with my hands or they do it with the click of a button. And to me, that's as, I mean, boiled down, that's as simple as I can make it. What are the issues that you would consider yourself conservative on?

Social issues? Some, I guess, but mostly it's, you know, where I would agree with Trump is I think he did a good job on the border. I think without a border, we don't have a country. The flip side of that is immigration. That's where I'm going to break from him. And especially, you know, thinking of it fiscally, we could tell. talk about ICE and the fact that I understand and I agree with the fundamental mission of enforcement. That, and that's to get the criminal elements that shouldn't be here out of the

country. That's to keep the people safe. And they've done this mission off of about $7 billion. So now they have, with the big beautiful bill, they have $80 billion. Why do they need that increase to perform the exact same mission? Now we're seeing them go into the streets with their masks, and now we have American citizens dead. That's, I can't get behind that. How do you feel about the Trump presidency, the second term? I think it's playing out in real time as damaging, especially in my state. It's an agriculture state.

We are second in corn. We're fifth in soybean exports, and we're first in the nation in beef. And bad policy is bad policy. And sweeping tariffs. the cutting of USAID closes markets to our bean farmers. 52% of our exports for beans in the fifth largest bean economy in the state. That means then we now have beans rotting in silos. What's that cause?

Family farmers and ranchers, bankruptcy is up 46%. Farmer suicides are on the rise. And regardless of, I'm tired of people saying, oh, you voted for it, you deserve it. No, you don't, right? They're human beings, and 2% of our population feed the rest of us. Dan Osborne, who's running as an independent for the Senate in Nebraska, will continue our conversation in a moment.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm talking today with an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate, Dan Osborne of Nebraska. Osborne has never held government office. But this isn't his first rodeo either. He ran for the Senate in 2024. and he lost the incumbent Deb Fisher by seven points.

In a state as solidly Republican as Nebraska, that was considered a pretty good showing. Osborne is a mechanic, and he was the president of his union local, which makes quite a contrast to his opponent, the current senator Pete Ricketts, whose father founded T.D. Ameritrade. Meanwhile, President Trump has become deeply unpopular,

an anti-incumbent sentiment is likely to be, very high. I'll continue my conversation now with Dan Osborne. Dan, do you find a lot of people in Nebraska who voted for Trump the second time out, regret that vote now? Yes. That is the sentiment in the focus groups.

It's like, eh, this isn't exactly what, you know, we thought it was going to happen. So especially if you're a farmer, last year you didn't have, you couldn't sell your beans. This year, you get a bailout that's falling short because the inputs are so high. fertilizer. I was talking to a

row crop farmer who only farms 1,900 acres, so he's kind of small. $50,000 more as his fertilizer is going to cost than it was pre-war with Iran because of the natural gas is how we get our fertilizer

and it's stuck there. So it's jacking up prices. Their inputs are high. Now they're fuels high for their tractors and they're hurting. How do you feel about the war in Iran? I think the war in Iran. I think this is a Trump war. You know, do I think Iran should have nuclear weapons? No. Do I think the Ayatollah was a bad guy and killed a, you know, a lot of his

citizens that were trying to rise up? Yeah. Do I think this could have been done diplomatically? Yeah, I do. I believe that. And, you know, pulling it was. It was in 2018. Yeah. Well, in 2018, we walked away from it. We walked away from it, correct? And that makes no sense. You oppose abortion, but you've supported the road decision. And since Dobbs, Nebraska's passed a 12-week ban. How has that affected the state,

and what would you support when it comes to reproductive rights? Yeah, I think I tend to take a bit of a libertarian stance that, you know, stay out of our bedrooms and our doctor's offices. That's not the role. that Congress should have. So I would support codifying row at a federal level. In my own personal life, I'm an Irish Catholic in my own personal life. I would never advocate for anybody to have an abortion.

But I support the right for women to choose. We began our conversation by talking about your union history. You led that strike at a Kellogg's plant in Omaha in 2021. that plant is going to be fully closed by the end of the year, cutting about 500 union jobs, as I understand it. How did that happen? And what does this mean for the labor movement, that after you go on strike, you win some concessions,

the company just closes up shop, and that's it. Well, first of all, I'm not 100% convinced they're going to close this. They, again, tried this in 2015 in our contract, track, they said they were going to close Battle Creek, Michigan. If we didn't give them the two-tier wage system, so we gave them the two-tier wage system, they left Battle Creek open. So this could be just an employ for negotiations, but if it's not, and they close that plant, well, you have to, that goes back to Kellogg's business model, right? They've sold that company to Kellenova, and I think Kellenova sold it again. They spun off.

North American cereal. So there's a lot of things that play behind the scenes and the fact that cereal sales are down. You know... Just curious, why are cereal sales down? I think... I mean, there's so many other breakfast options, too,

and there's healthier breakfast options, probably, that people... And, you know, ever since... Healthyer than frosted flakes? Get out. Chocolate frosted flakes. Ooh. They make that? Yeah.

No, I mean, everything's fine in moderation, right? But even chocolate frosted flakes. Oh, yeah. All right, okay. You could treat yourself. You'll be fine. In the last presidential race, there were a lot of things that happened in the last presidential race, but one of them was quite obviously the Democratic Party was losing union support in some areas. How do you assess that?

Well, I think, you know, it's, you know, they were better at boiling everything down and putting it on bumper stickers. here's the thing about most people. And like I said, I was this guy for a long time. I would get my news probably in small increments in my car and maybe scrolling on Facebook on my 15-minute break. No newspaper in your life. Uh-uh, no. So if you're talking to that person and you have two competing messages, you have one that was coming from the report, Republican side saying, hey, I'm for you. They're for they, them. I'm for the worker.

And then the other side is seemingly talking down to people saying, you need to respect people's pronouns, this and that. Who's that guy going to listen to at the end of the day? Did that kind of that affect you adversely? No. No, it didn't. Because I mean, I live in a pretty urban area, and I talk to, you know, I have friends. And my time in the Navy, I've traveled a lot. I've seen a lot of cultures. And I'm friends with tribal people and, you know, so many different walks of life. Right.

I've had experience in my life. So. That you think made you more broad-minded or empathetic. Yeah, I would say, you know, we're all a product of our experiences. But if you're somebody who's never left your town, and, you know, you get, one, typically one message and then it's echoed in your coffee shops and at the watering hole at night, then you're going to form an attitude in an opinion based off of that information.

The America First Wing of the Republican Party has been, let's put it this way, skeptical about U.S. support of Ukraine, which is, and I think Trump himself has been more than skeptical. And many are turning away also from support of Israel. How do you feel about those issues? Well, I think we should support our allies. You know, who would those be? Well, Israel is an ally, right? They're the only democracy in the area. I support Israel. But what I'm seeing right now is Israel going on the offensive and I'm having a hard time supporting that. I'm having a hard time support thinking that anything that says made in USA is dropping on schools and hospitals. At the end of the day, I have empathy and compassion for all people. Now, in regards to Ukraine, I support Ukraine. You know, and a lot of that

comes from when I was in second grade, I had to put my head underneath the desk and prepare for a nuclear warhead to land. You know, and then, you know, growing up. Me too. I don't know if our younger listeners know this, but we had these drills in school. Yeah. As if the deaths was going to protect us from a nuclear blast. I know. It's so ridiculous if you think about it. And it's actually more sad today.

Now they have to do active shooter drills in schools. That's real. That's as real as it gets. Way more real than what we had to experience. Yeah. And, you know, now you have this generation. I go out to a lot of colleges and I talk to the young kids. I have three of them that age myself.

They are having a sense of nihilism. right now. How do you mean? Well, they have no faith in government. They're registering as in Nebraska. They're registering as independence and record numbers. They don't see the government working for them at all. And they see that the statistics that the first time age for a home buyer in this country is 40 years old.

So they're almost just like gambling more on stuff, you know, just like, screw it, why do I need to save money? Your kids are going to vote for you? Yeah. They better. Are you, is your, are your politics informed by what you're hearing from them? Yeah, a lot of it, for sure. How so? Well, I want to fight for them, right?

And, you know, they're going to be cut from the same cloth as me. They don't, they don't have any privilege in this world to, similar to my opponent, you know, does with his coming from a family of a billionaire. So that's the way I'm going to operate in the U.S. Senate. I'm going to approach legislation and policy based off of knowing. what it's like to put Christmas on a credit card. Do you get any sense that the Trump era is ending, or will it continue after Trump?

There's only one Trump. Was he appealing to you in 16? Did you vote for him? In 2016? No, I did not vote for him. I actually, you know, I was the undecided, and pretty much until I walked into that, booth. And what did you do? Why didn't vote for Trump? You voted for the Democrat?

Yeah, I did on that one. And, you know, because here's a guy, I just don't think the billionaires are going to come save us, right? That's why I like the John Testers of the world. The guys who are salt to the earth who just have lived their lives, honestly and purely, and I just didn't see him as that. You don't see Donald Trump as pure? No. You do a pretty good Trump, by the way. This would be your moment. Quite frankly, I don't know, maybe pure. I'm the most purest.

You never seen anybody more pure than me. It's not bad. You do that on the stump? Yeah, sometimes. It depends on the room I'm in. How's it go over? But I guess it's out in the open now. Exactly.

It's now coast to coast. Coast to coast. We're here with David. Maybe the worst, David. I call him, do nothing, David. Looking at 2028, because this is going to start happening, it's already happening. You're starting to see people line up.

You're seeing the vice president of the United States and the Secretary of State start to jostle in the Republican Party. You see all the obvious names in the Democratic Party. Anybody alike? Oh, for president? Yeah. No. No. You're a tough audience.

I am. What do you want to say? So when they, you know, all the time when you have the undecides, I hear people like, how could you be undecided? I'm like, I just am. You know, and they're like, don't believe me. But I'm just skeptical. And I was raised and I raised my kids to question everything in this. Just don't take something for at face value.

And that's why, you know, another reason why I'm independent because I believe in principles over party. I'm not just going to vote a letter. I want to know who that person is and what they stand for, what they talk about, how they live their life, where they come from, that all plays into it. What are your chances? In your election. Oh, 100% hands down, landslide.

Nobody's ever one bigger in Nebraska than me. No, yeah, my chances are great. I'm going to go out and do this the old-fashioned way. I'm going to continue to do. already done 60 town halls. I'm going to do another 200 town halls like I did in 2024. And the message is the same. It hasn't changed a bit. Us wagerners deserve a seat at the table in Washington, D.C. because if you're not on the table, you're on the menu. Appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Dan Osborne is running for the Senate as an independent in the state of Nebraska.

I'm David Remnick. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for listening today. I hope you enjoyed the program, and we'll see you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Walton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Mike Cutchman, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer.

With guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Alejandra Deccett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.