Dan Osborn

Daniel L. Osborn (born March 29, 1975) is a U.S. Navy veteran, industrial mechanic, former labor union leader, and independent politician from Nebraska.

Osborn served in the Nebraska Army National Guard before working at Kellogg's Omaha plant. He eventually became president of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 50G and led the strike at Kellogg's Omaha plant in 2021.

Osborn ran in the regular 2024 United States Senate election in Nebraska. He drew attention for his unorthodox, populist platform and his unusually high-level support as a moderate independent candidate in what is usually a strongly Republican state. Some polls showed him in a dead heat with incumbent Deb Fischer, but she won by 7 points. Osborn's performance was the best ever for an independent candidate in a Nebraska US Senate race. Split Ticket, a data-driven political analysis and forecasting site, wrote that his performance was the strongest relative to the partisan nature of Senate elections.

In 2024, Osborn established a political action committee (PAC) to support working-class candidates. In 2025, he formed an exploratory committee for a possible run in the 2026 United States Senate election in Nebraska. On July 8, 2025, Osborn announced that he would enter the race as an independent, challenging incumbent U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts.

Osborn's attempts to unseat Fischer and Ricketts have been called "rugged guy" campaigns, like Graham Platner's Senate campaign in Maine.