The Nebraska State Education Association endorsed registered nonpartisan Dan Osborn in his Senate bid against Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts.
The endorsement comes months earlier than the last time Osborn ran for Congress against GOP U.S. Sen. Deb Fisher in 2024, which happened in the run up to the general election. NSEA President Tim Royers said it was “very important” for the union to lay “a marker down early” for a candidate who cares about public education.
“It’s really become clear to us how important these federal races are … candidly, it wasn’t something that we felt in the last election cycle,” Royers said. “The biggest thing is there’s a very clear contrast in candidates in this race.”
Royers said NSEA members have shown their ability to mobilize voters in communities of varying size — pointing to ballot measures that they helped organize and can help Osborn “move the needle in a demonstrably positive way.” Osborn called the endorsement “huge.”
Osborn, a former Omaha labor leader, said he hoped local union members could knock on some doors for his campaign in the summer and help get his political message out across the state.
He lost to Fischer by six percentage points, but his bid made him a national political name. His style of populism — focused on the working class, union organizing and kitchen table issues — has been copied by other independents seeking office in other states.
The Osborn-Ricketts race has been heated, with both spending much of the campaign criticizing one another. That continued Wednesday, with Osborn criticizing Ricketts voting for Trump’s tax and spending bill for a provision that allowed the state to opt into a federal tax credit program for donating to scholarship-granting organizations for private K-12 schools — an idea Osborn called a “national school voucher scheme.” Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen opted into the program this year.
“Our teachers deserve better support, better compensation and the respect that comes from doing the most important job in our society,” Osborn said. “My support for public schools means listening to the people who do the work every single day.”
Ricketts and groups tied to the Senate GOP have spent much of the race so far trying to characterize Osborn as a Democrat.
The Ricketts campaign, through spokesman Will Coup, said, “It’s no surprise that yet another Democrat-aligned PAC is backing Fake Dan Osborn.” He said Osborn had also taken money from the American Federation of Teachers, a group he criticized for supporting COVID-era school closures and school sports participation by trans kids.
The U.S. Senate general election is Nov. 3.
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