Nebraska independent Dan Osborn launches group for working-class candidates, reflects on Senate run

(LINCOLN, NE) — Dan Osborn, a former union president and Navy veteran who ran an unusually competitive U.S. Senate campaign in deep-red Nebraska as an independent, is launching a new political action committee meant to help working class candidates like himself run for office.

“At least the idea is to help other people like me, who are teachers, nurses, plumbers, carpenters, bus drivers, to be able to run for office in their particular counties, states, areas, and we can help them accomplish that,” Osborn told ABC News in an interview by phone on Monday.

“You know, we’ve created something pretty special here in Nebraska. And I just want to continue that.”

The organization, the Working Class Heroes Fund, is a new hybrid political action committee (PAC) that will support working-class candidates and mobilize working class voters, according to an announcement and a PAC spokesperson. The group will also advocate for labor unions, including supporting strike funds, which help union workers cover expenses if they go on strike.

Osborn hopes the PAC’s work will help bring more workers’ perspectives to government, about how “people don’t want handouts from their government… they just want to know when you go and you put in your time, you put in your eight hours work for eight hours pay, that your paycheck matters, right?” Osborn said. “And going to be able to afford your mortgage and your cars and hopefully set aside money for college and some Christmases.”

The PAC is a new organization and not a conversion of Osborn’s campaign committee, according to a spokesperson. It will vet and consider which working-class candidates to support on a case-by-case basis, and will support candidates across political parties.

Could supporting candidates across party lines lead to pushback? Osborn, who eschewed party labels or support during his Senate bid, feels that doesn’t matter.

“I’ve never really understood why, if you’re a part of a party, that you have to have a specific set of beliefs, and you have to reject the other set of beliefs, and vice versa,” he said.

Osborn had campaigned explicitly on his labor bonafides, including his work as a steamfitter and mechanic, as well as his insistence that he’d be a truly independent voice in the Senate.

On Election Day, Osborn lost to Fischer by 8 percentage points — not as thin of a margin as some polls had predicted, but well ahead of the margin between President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris; Harris lost statewide to Trump by 21 points. (Harris did lead Trump in the state’s 2nd Congressional District, netting her one Electoral College vote.)

Asked if he was surprised by the margin between him and Fischer, Osborn said, “Yes, I was, actually — and it sucked. I suppose if I had to describe it in one word, it sucked.

“You know, I really thought that the people in Nebraska saw the value in electing a working-class person,” he said, but a late influx of money into the race supporting his opponent made a difference. “Does it hurt a little bit? Sure, but again, I think we created something here.”

His family is “not taking [the loss] as good as I am,” Osborn said later with a chuckle. “Everybody goes back to school and we go back — I’m going back to work tomorrow, and my wife, she was working the whole entire time to help pay for the endeavor. But, you know, we were all hoping for different results, and we didn’t see it.”

Osborn said he was not surprised by the larger margin between Trump and Harris, given Nebraska’s deep Republican lean.

One of the trickier dynamics in the race was that as Osborn tried to maintain an independent image, some national Democrats or Democratic groups indicated that if he was elected to the Senate, he would caucus with Democrats. (Throughout his campaign, Osborn emphasized he would not plan to caucus with either party.)

Did that hurt his campaign? Osborn thinks it made a difference.

“I can’t consult with those people. I don’t even know who they are. They’re making money off of my name, which is completely ridiculous,” he said, adding that he wants independent expenditures out of politics more generally.

His own organization, however, is allowed to make independent expenditures, as a hybrid PAC. Asked about that, Osborn acknowledged the irony but said the PAC will support candidates who support campaign finance reform and want an end to how money influences politics.

“The independent expenditure is part of the problem, and I would love nothing more than our elected officials to get rid of my PAC because it shouldn’t exist. You know what I mean? None of this should exist.”

Even as he launches the PAC, however, Osborn said he is also heading back to work as a steamfitter.

“The debt collectors do not care that I ran the closest Senate race in the country, unfortunately,” he told ABC News. (Pre-Election Day polling had found the race among the closest Senate races in the country, although the final results have been closer in other Senate races, such as in Michigan and Pennsylvania.) “So I got to pay my bills. So yes, I’m going back to work.”

Would he run again for public office? Osborn said he wouldn’t rule it out: “I’m open to everything that’s going to be on the table.”

“In my neighborhood, there’s a position open: the dogcatcher’s open,” he added, “So I should probably start there,” he said, although he immediately clarified, “That’s a joke.”

-ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd, Will McDuffie, Isabella Murray, and Kate Walter contributed to this report.