Of all the competitive U.S. Senate races this year, Senator Deb Fischer, R-Nebraska, was expected to win reelection handily, where Trump won with roughly 58% of the vote in 2016 and 2020. But that was before Dan Osborn , a former union leader, decided to run for office as an independent.
In a state where Republican victories are almost always a given, Nebraska is now one of the top Senate races to watch in the Nov. 5 election as its outcome could determine which party controls the upper chamber of Congress.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll puts Osborn just two percentage points behind Fischer, 46% to 48%, with 5% of likely voters in Nebraska either undecided or refusing to answer. Other political tracking organizations, including the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, updated the contest to “leaning” versus “solidly” Republican .