Aaron Sanderford
LINCOLN — Nebraska Republican U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer has released a campaign poll partly aimed at assuring donors and outside groups that she has found ways to blunt the momentum of her challenger, nonpartisan Dan Osborn.
The Fischer poll’s findings, released Friday, largely mirror months of polling for the Osborn campaign and others showing a Senate race closer than expected. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats roughly 2-to-1 in the state, outside of unaligned voters, a slice of the electorate that nearly matches the number of Democrats.
The Fischer poll shows her leading Osborn 48%-42%, with 10% undecided. That’s just beyond the survey’s 4% margin of error. Friday was the first time since July that her camp has released an internal poll. That one had Fischer ahead 50%-24%.
“We expect this positive trend to continue as time goes on and more Nebraskans learn that Dan Osborn isn’t an independent,” said Derek Oden, a Fischer campaign spokesman. “We still have work to do, and we’re running hard, but this is a good sign.”
Fischer’s new poll of 600 likely voters by phone, text and web was done Oct. 5-8 by Torchlight Strategies. Its release came a week after Osborn’s campaign highlighted four polls showing him narrowly leading the race, each within the margin of error.
Osborn touts polls showing him leading
Osborn’s most recent campaign poll of 558 likely voters, conducted Sept. 20-23, indicated him leading 45%-44%, with 11% undecided. It was conducted by SurveyUSA using cell phones, landlines and the web. The survey listed a 4.8% margin of error.
Another poll the Osborn camp touted surveyed 400 people online Sept. 27-Oct. 1. It was done by The Independent Center, which targets unaligned voters. It found Osborn leading Fischer 47%-42%, with 10% undecided. It listed a 4.9% margin of error.
A poll of 895 likely voters done by Change Research found Osborn leading 46%-43%, with 10% undecided. That online-only poll had a 3.5% margin of error. All of the Senate polls reviewed by the Examiner showed similarly close results.
“Deb Fischer’s party bosses and corporate sponsors are panicking about this race, spending millions of dollars to smear Dan Osborn and bail out Fischer’s failing campaign,” said Dustin Wahl, an Osborn campaign spokesman. “But Dan has a grassroots movement behind him … and that’s not going to be stopped by smear ads.”
Race tighter than most expected
Ratings services have taken note, shifting the race in recent weeks from variations of safe Republican to something more akin to likely Republican, which is how the Cook Political Report lists the race, joining a race in red-leaning battleground Florida.
Five-Thirty-Eight, the Disney/ABC owned polling aggregator and interpreter, rates Nebraska’s Senate race between Fischer and Osborn as within 1.5 percentage points, among the closest races in the country outside politically divided states.
Osborn has called his unaffilliated campaign an experiment to see whether Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisans are more willing to work together to break the cycle of sameness in Washington without a party label.
Fischer and her supporters have argued that Osborn is a Democrat in sheep’s clothing, which Osborn says is not true. He has been a registered nonpartisan since at least 2004, according to Douglas County and state election records.
They point to comments in interviews and social media likes that they say paint a man who is ideologically more aligned with the left than the right and say his effort not to take sides in the 2024 presidential race is a gimmick. He says it’s not.
Local political consultants and academics who have spoken with the Examiner about the race said that Fischer is still likely to win the race but that it is unexpectedly close enough that she could lose.
University of Nebraska at Omaha political scientist Randall Adkins has told the Examiner and others that the race is closer than he would have expected and more competitive than it ought to be given the state’s heavy right-leaning partisan bent.
Major outside spending
Because of this, the race is drawing major outside spending for Fischer, including a rare joint investment by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which typically spends money in swing states, not states the GOP considers safe.
Among them is Ending Spending, a super PAC tied to conservative mega-donors Marlene and Joe Ricketts, the parents of U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb. The Super PAC last helped Fischer reach the Senate in 2012, during a brutal three-way GOP primary.
Ending Spending has reserved nearly $1.4 million on television ads to run Oct. 9-22 against Osborn, including one attacking his unwillingness to say which party he would align with in Congress. The ad argues he would align with Democrats and calls him “deceptive.”
Brian Baker, a spokesman for Ending Spending, said the group was “proud to support” Fischer. He called her a respected voice on national security and agriculture, given her background and work.
He said Osborn is backed by “Democratic dark money groups.”
Outside groups are also spending millions on Osborn’s behalf. Osborn’s campaign has been critical of Fischer’s record, including her ties to corporate donors, which he compared to NASCAR sponsors for race car drivers.
Osborn has declined to take money from corporate political action committees. But outside donors are investing in the race, including some donations Fischer and other Republicans have criticized from the progressive Sixteen Thirty Fund.
As of the last federal filing deadline this summer, Osborn’s bid had been supported by about $5.3 million in outside spending, according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign spending. Fischer’s bid had been aided by more than $1.2 million.
Like most incumbents, Fischer has had an edge in traditional fundraising. She had raised $6.2 million as of June 30 and had nearly $3 million in cash on hand. Osborn had raised $1.6 million and had $650,000 in cash on hand. Updated filings are coming.
Osborn made his name as a former union leader who led a 2021 strike against Kellogg’s seeking better pay and benefits. Some on the right, including Republicans in Omaha city government, have criticized him for putting the plant’s future at risk.
The company has announced plans to close the plant, though the union says it is working with corporate leaders to find a way to save local jobs. Union leaders have said Osborn is not to blame for the company’s decision and that the factory is profitable.
He hosted a rally with United Autoworkers President Shawn Fain in Lincoln on Saturday. The group endorsed him, along with other unions he worked with as a steamfitter and a local labor leader. Fischer has the endorsements of local fire and law enforcement unions.
Fischer attacked Osborn Oct. 3 as a threat to Republican control of the Senate. Republicans are hoping to pick up seats in Montana and West Virginia to flip control of the Senate.
Fischer is a two-term U.S. senator who had said she would only run for two terms. She has told the Examiner she decided to run for a third term because she has learned that seniority matters in the Senate and that her seniority is helping Nebraska.
She says her work on national security and infrastructure have made a difference in improving Offutt Air Force Base and Eppley Airfield. Osborn says that Fischer mainly helps big businesses and that the Senate needs more working people like him.