LINCOLN, Nebraska — If Dan Osborn, a populist independent, wins an upset victory in the Senate race here, it will be a humiliating blow to Republicans.
But Senate Democrats are all but pretending Osborn doesn’t exist.
Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has not spoken to Osborn, his spokesperson told POLITICO. Sen. Gary Peters , the Michigander leading Senate Democrats’ campaign committee, recently told reporters he is not engaging in Nebraska “in any shape or form.”
Osborn, Peters noted, is “not a Democrat.”
The decision to keep their distance is hardly one-sided. A former union leader, the Nebraskan is presenting himself as an anti-partisan, worker-friendly outsider in the race, while painting the Republican incumbent, Sen. Deb Fischer , as a career politician beholden to her donors. And two of his recent ads proclaim that Osborn strongly agrees with former President Donald Trump on issues like border security and confronting China and even criticizes Fischer for calling on Trump to drop out of the 2016 race after the “Access Hollywood” video without specifying why she did so.