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Our verdict

LiberalMind endorses Pete Ricketts

Election Day is November 3. There is no Democrat on this ballot — the first time that has happened in back-to-back Nebraska Senate elections since 1914. This is the whole race — the records, the pledges, the worst claims against each candidate, and what the sources actually show. Read the research, and decide.

How Nebraska got here

Pete Ricketts was appointed to this Class 2 seat in January 2023, when Governor Jim Pillen named him to the vacancy left by Ben Sasse's resignation. He then won the 2024 special election with 62.6%. This is his first run for a full six-year term.

The Democratic story is a withdrawal. Cindy Burbank won the May 12, 2026 Democratic primary with roughly 90% of the vote, then withdrew on July 17: "I've looked at the numbers. I won't be your next senator." Secretary of State Bob Evnen announced her removal from the ballot on July 21. Per Ballotpedia, Nebraska is the first state since 1914 with two consecutive Senate elections lacking a Democratic candidate. In August, the Nebraska Democratic Party endorsed the independent in the race, Dan Osborn.

The five-name ballot — Ricketts (Republican), Osborn (Independent, by petition), Mike Marvin (Legal Marijuana NOW), Robin Richards (Nebraska Working People), and Chuck Conboy (America First) — is confirmed from county sample ballots built from Secretary of State data. The raters have been moving toward the race all fall: Cook says Likely R, Inside Elections moved to Lean R on September 30, and Sabato's Crystal Ball moved to Leans R on October 14. The polls say why. YouGov (Sept. 24–Oct. 3) had Osborn 48, Ricketts 47. SurveyUSA (Sept. 13) had Osborn 46, Ricketts 42. co/efficient (Sept. 30) had Ricketts 48, Osborn 43. The averages sit at about Ricketts +2. The money matches the closeness: per FEC figures compiled through October 14, Ricketts raised $14.5 million with $1.2 million on hand; Osborn raised $11.0 million with $1.95 million on hand — some trackers report Osborn's raised total closer to $9.8 million, and we note the variance rather than hide it. The Senate Leadership Fund has raised its pro-Ricketts super-PAC commitment from $7 million to $15 million. Incumbents do not spend like that on safe seats.

Pete Ricketts (Republican) — incumbent

His record: Ricketts was governor of Nebraska for two terms, 2015–2023. His first Senate race was 2006, when he lost to Democratic incumbent Ben Nelson, 63.88% to 36.12% — the last time a Republican lost a Nebraska Senate race. As governor he signed legislation providing $12.7 billion in tax relief, and he designated Nebraska a "Second Amendment sanctuary state."

His Senate votes: He voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 — one of 31 Senate Republicans — and for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025, which passed the Senate 51–50 with his vote among the 50 Republicans plus the vice president's tiebreak. In debate, Ricketts said the bill "dedicated $170 billion" to the border wall and agents. Independent trackers put the law's border and immigration funding at roughly $170.7 billion for fiscal 2025–2029. The claim checks out, and this series says so when a claim checks out. One item we do not print as settled: a partisan tracker credits Ricketts with two votes against extending the enhanced ACA premium tax credits in 2025; we could not confirm those from Senate roll-call records in this pass, so they are flagged here as unverified rather than stated.

The data-center file — his signature law, his successor's pause: Ricketts signed the ImagiNE Nebraska Act, the state's business-incentive law. Per figures from the office of his Republican successor, Governor Jim Pillen, data centers collected roughly $836 million in Nebraska tax breaks from January 2021 to July 2026 under it — about $311 million of it for one Meta/Facebook facility in Papillion. Pillen paused the incentives by executive order in July 2026. Those dollar figures reached print through partisan outlets, and we flag the sourcing — but the figures are attributed to the current governor's own office, and the pause is a fact. Ricketts's current position, as reported: data centers are "a community decision." An Osborn ad runs on the same number: "Pete delivered $836 million for data centers."

Pros: A proven in-service record at two levels of government that matches his platform: tax relief at scale, a fiscal-hawk vote against his own party's debt deal, a yes on the big bill, and a border-funding claim that survives checking.

Cons: The incentive law is his, and $836 million in breaks — much of it to one of the largest corporations on earth — is corporate welfare by any honest name. His own party's successor governor paused the program. "A community decision" is not a defense of a state law he signed; it is a retreat from one.

The flaw, plainly: Ricketts's flaw is demonstrated, in service, and it is this: he built the machine that wrote the checks, and now declines to defend it. It is a real flaw of the policy kind — a candidate's own enacted program producing results he won't own. It is not a contrary ideology, and it is not disqualifying against the alternative priced below.

Dan Osborn (Independent)

His record: Osborn is an Omaha industrial mechanic — "I've been a mechanic for eighteen years. My attendance rate is 99%" — and president of BCTGM Local 50G, the Kellogg's workers' union; biographical profiles describe him as a U.S. Navy and Nebraska Army National Guard veteran. As local president he led the 2021 Kellogg's strike: about 500 Omaha workers, more than 1,400 across all plants, 77 days, against forced overtime and the two-tier wage system. The settlement kept existing benefits and created an accelerated path between tiers. In 2024 he ran as an independent against Senator Deb Fischer and took 46.5% — an unusually strong independent showing in Nebraska, and the foundation of this campaign.

Then the plant closed. The Omaha Kellogg's plant — operating since 1942 — shut for good in August 2026, eliminating the roughly 500 production jobs the 2021 strike had defended. Osborn had publicly doubted the closure would happen ("I think it's complete BS"); he held a town hall the evening of the last day. Ricketts, at a press conference, expressed sympathy for the displaced workers.

The caucus question — the center of this race, priced honestly: Osborn pledges not to caucus with either party ("no interest" in caucusing with Republicans or Democrats, per an October press call). He is part of a six-independent "Fulcrum Caucus" coordination effort. He has also told Roll Call: "I'm going to caucus with everybody," framing his vote as leverage — "They're going to need my vote." Both data points are on the record and both belong in any honest treatment: the formal pledge is no-caucus; the leverage pitch is also his. A Senate Leadership Fund ad claiming he made "a pledge to caucus with Democrats" was flagged as contradicted by the Roll Call reporting — we note that too, because the ad misstates his position in the other direction.

His coalition: The Nebraska Democratic Party endorsed him in August 2026. Ballotpedia's endorsements table also lists AFGE, AFA, UAW, NEA, End Citizens United, and the Sierra Club. He campaigned with Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) at an Epstein-focused town hall, alongside former Governor Marc Racicot and Joe Walsh.

His debate claims, checked: His attack on the 45Z ethanol credit's cost — about $46 billion — is close to the Joint Committee on Taxation's score of roughly $45 billion; his "$1 for every gallon" phrasing overstates it ($1 is the maximum rate, with wage and apprenticeship conditions met; the base rate is $0.20). He blames the One Big Beautiful Bill's Medicaid cuts for a dialysis clinic closure in Chadron, telling Ricketts in their September debate: "I wouldn't have allowed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to strip a trillion dollars away from Medicaid, and people's health care is going to be hurting." The closure attribution is his claim; it was not independently verified in this pass, and we flag it as such. The context is real: about 346,000 Nebraskans are on Medicaid, and the Nebraska Hospital Association reported 55% of state hospitals calling their finances "challenging" in January 2026.

Pros: A genuine labor record, earned in a real fight, and the strongest independent Senate showing in modern Nebraska history. His formal pledge — no caucus, either party — is on the record, and the attack ad against him on that point was itself flagged as false.

Cons: Everything around the pledge points one way. His endorsements are the Democratic coalition's endorsements; his debate arguments are the Democratic arguments (Medicaid, the tax bill); his campaign partner on the trail is a progressive House Democrat. And the leverage quote gives the game away in his own words: an uncommitted vote in a 53–47 Senate is not independence from the majority question — it is an auction of it.

The flaw, plainly: A Senate seat is an organizing vote before it is anything else. Osborn asks Nebraska to spend a proven Republican organizing vote on an uncommitted one, backed by the other party's entire coalition, and calls the uncertainty leverage. Nebraska voters are entitled to ask: leverage for whom?

Also on the ballot: Mike Marvin (Legal Marijuana NOW) is reported by Decision Desk HQ's Substack to have withdrawn and endorsed Osborn, though his name remains on the ballot — a single report, flagged as such. For Robin Richards (Nebraska Working People) and Chuck Conboy (America First), our researchers located no meaningful public record beyond ballot qualification. We report the gap rather than fill it.

OUR CALL

LiberalMind endorses Pete Ricketts.

The criteria are plain. Ricketts is a proven, in-service conservative whose record — tax relief, the Second Amendment sanctuary, the debt-deal no, the big-bill yes — matches the values this seat exists to advance, and whose one big debate claim about the bill survived checking. His flaw is real and it is priced above: a signature incentive law that delivered roughly $836 million to data centers, paused by his own party's successor, defended by him with a shrug. That is a policy flaw of the proven kind. It does not outweigh the alternative, because the alternative is not a candidate with a different flaw — it is the removal of a certain organizing vote from the majority column and its replacement with a self-described auction, financed and endorsed by the coalition that wants that majority gone. Osborn is not a Democrat and we do not call him one; his pledge is formally on the record. But caucus math is the Senate's first fact, and a pledge to caucus with nobody, from a candidate carried by one side's coalition, has a foreseeable destination. Nebraska should keep the vote it can count.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Winner: Pete Ricketts (Republican) — called by the Associated Press. This result was appended on November 4, 2026 (results wave 1); the original article above is unchanged, exactly as published before Election Day.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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