A seemingly non-competitive Senate race in deeply Republican Nebraska is no longer a safe bet for two-term incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer — the dynamics jolted by the late-stage insurgence of independent Dan Osborn, who, if successful, could be the deciding factor on which party has control of the chamber, where Democrats currently hold a razor-thin 51-49 majority.
“I hate to call it like I’m trying to call a Nebraska football game, but I would say I’m gonna win pretty substantially. People are ready for a change. People are sick of the status quo,” Osborn told ABC News in an interview.
Fischer holds a slight edge in polling — and to be sure, Nebraska has reliably voted for Republicans in presidential races over the past several decades, and Trump handily won the state in 2020 by nearly 20 points and has endorsed Fischer — but national groups are flooding the zone with last-minute investments.
The GOP’s Senate campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, recently placed a $172,000 ad buy with Fischer’s campaign, according to AdImpact . And conservative super PAC Heartland Resurgence has invested nearly half a million dollars in ads opposing Osborn, although there has also been more than $1.6 million in outside spending supporting Osborn, according to an analysis by OpenSecrets .