As Nebraska voters head to the polls, Dan Osborn, an upstart independent challenger to Republican Sen. Deb Fischer, has a chance to pull off the most shocking upset of the 2024 campaign. A recent New York Times poll puts him just two points behind Fischer, and other surveys show him within striking distance.

If he wins, he could help keep the Senate out of Republican control. Yet national Democrats want nothing to do with Osborn — and he’s fine with that. In what may be this year’s most fascinating race, Osborn has run a truly independent campaign against a Republican incumbent — and has steadfastly distanced himself from the Democratic Party.

The reason is not difficult to determine. As Ari Kohen, a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska, told me, “If Dan were a Democrat, he would lose by 20 points.”

Barry Rubin, president of Heartland Strategy Group and former executive director of the Nebraska Democratic Party, shares Kohen’s views. A “D” next to the candidate’s name is a “Scarlet Letter in the western part of the state,” where Republicans traditionally dominate, Rubin said.

Osborn has steadfastly refused to say which party he would work with if elected. But if the Senate consists of 50 Republicans to 49 Democrats after Election Day (and the Democrats win the White House), Osborn could be the deciding vote on control of the Senate — and, in short, the most powerful politician in Washington. Due to the tilt of the Republican Party and the presence of former President Donald Trump at the top of the ticket, the smart money is on Fischer to pull off a victory. But Osborn’s remarkable campaign in a consistently Republican state presents a tantalizing opportunity for Democrats: Has he cracked the code for how a progressive candidate can run a competitive race in red-state America?

Because while Osborn has shunned support from Democrats, he runs a progressive policy platform that leans heavily on economic populism. In September, Trump endorsed Fischer and called Osborn “a Bernie Sanders Democrat” — a claim that in many ways is not far off.

On his campaign website, Osborn attacks “private equity firms,” ​​calls for an end to “subsidies to super-profitable pharmaceutical companies” and promises to protect Social Security. He rails against the “class of millionaires and billionaires who have been inoculated by the laws they make,” recently telling The New York Times, “We are at the top of a corporate-led government.”

He also supports raising the minimum wage and corporate taxes and has made passing the PRO Act, a top union priority, a centerpiece of his policy agenda. This last priority is no surprise given Osborn’s biography. Before entering politics, he was an industrial mechanic at Kellogg’s cereal company, where he led a strike against the corporate conglomerate in 2021 (he was fired in 2023 in a move he calls retaliation).

Osborn regularly portrays Fischer as a tool of her corporate donors, calling her a “creature of the DC swamp.” The sitting president “has taken so much corporate money,” says an Osborn ad, that “she should wear patches, like NASCAR.”

Being in a state that Trump won by 19 points in 2020, Osborn isn’t shy about appealing to the former president’s voters. He has taken out an ad in which ordinary Nebraskans say they are voting for Donald Trump “with one finger” and Dan Osborn with the other. In the same ad, he says Fischer has more in common with Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. He even accuses Fischer of “stabbing Trump in the back” after she called for him to quit the 2016 race following the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape. But when you look under the hood of his campaign, it’s hard to find a single problem. in which Osborn openly sides with the Republicans. For example, he calls for strengthening border security and even places an ad saying that his background as an industrial welder could be useful in building Trump’s border wall. But like Vice President Kamala Harris, he has criticized his Republican rival for not supporting the immigration deal negotiated by Republican Sen. James Lankford.

On abortion, he says he opposes the procedure but believes it should be legal and has called for Roe v. Wade to be codified into federal law.

In a statement that would warm any social libertarian’s heart, Osborn recently said at a campaign event: “I don’t believe it’s my job or the government’s job to tell people when they should or shouldn’t have a family, and that also applies to IVF and contraceptives.” Even on the issue of guns, which tends to trip up Democrats in red states like Nebraska, Osborn has said he supports the Second Amendment but also supports “reasonable gun safety measures.”

While Osborn’s unique political style has paid off, he has also benefited from Fischer’s missteps. Even after two terms in the Senate, she is not particularly well known in the state and is one of the most unpopular senators in the country. For most of the campaign Fischer ignored Osborn, a decision that backfired badly. “The Osborn campaign has actually been campaigning for a year without Fischer getting involved,” Rubin said. “He organized hundreds of public events and he was able to define himself before Fischer could.” When she finally started running ads against him, it had the perverse effect of putting Osborn even more in the spotlight. While fellow Republican Pete Ricketts (who is currently seeking to complete the term of former Senator Ben Sasse) has a nearly 20-point lead over his Democratic rival, national Republicans have been forced to pour money into the state to bail out Fischer.

Osborn has also benefited from the quirkiness of Nebraska politics. Although the state is currently considered Republican, Nebraska has a long tradition of nonpartisanship. The unicameral state legislature (the only one in the country) is nonpartisan, as candidates do not run under party names. And it wasn’t that long ago that Democrats were competitive in the Cornhusker State. As recently as 2012, the state was represented in the Senate by Democrat Ben Nelson – and he succeeded Democrat Bob Kerrey, who served two terms as senator. But like much of red state America, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the Republican Party’s takeover by more extreme voices (first the Tea Party and then Trump’s MAGA), Democrats were simply unable to to compete in Republican-dominated states.

Osborn’s success is a direct result of his running as a true independent — and separating himself from the cultural and social baggage of being a Democrat in a red state like Nebraska. Not surprisingly, Fischer has tried to portray him as a secret Democrat, but that’s a hard sell if Osborn has never been a member of the Democratic Party. “He is fair and impartial,” Kohen says. ‘You can’t pin him down on the fact that he’s a party person. That makes him very unique.”

Democrats have done their part to respect Osborn’s independence. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the head of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee, recently said Democrats are not concerned with Nebraska “in any shape or form,” and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DY, has not spoken. to the starting candidate. The state Democratic Party chairman even criticized Osborn as “inauthentic” and compared him to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. Still, Osborn’s potential path to victory could give Democrats hope. “The message of this race is that their policy agenda can resonate in red state America,” Kohen said. “If you separate the problems from the party, this is what you end up with.”

Rubin agrees that while Osborn’s success is a bit of a “perfect storm,” his success in making this race competitive “can be a model for other states.”

“There are a lot of people in the middle” who are not represented by either party, Rubin said. “For any non-MAGA Republican, Osborn is a good fit.” We’ll have to see if it’s enough to prevail Tuesday night, but if Osborn somehow wins, the political earthquake could reshape American politics.