Dan Osborn, an Independent Senate candidate in Nebraska, is playing a complicated game of politics: endorsing a Democrat running against him to cajole votes away from Republicans.
Osborn and the Nebraska Democratic Party have endorsed Cindy Burbank, a candidate who doesn’t plan to continue her campaign for Senate should she win the Democratic nomination.
Democrats are running Osborn as a purported Independent candidate while funding him via Democrats’ political apparatus, one with close ties to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.).
Burbank’s campaign website makes it clear that she will drop out because Osborn deserves a “fair shot against Ricketts.”
“Here is the assignment for the U.S. Senate race,” Nebraska’s Democratic Party wrote, urging voters to back Burbank and not William Forbes, in the Democratic primary. “Vote for the real Democrat in the Primary Election, Cindy Burbank. Not the Ricketts plant, William Forbes. Hear it from Dan himself!”
Burbank would “drop out if she won the nomination and support Osborn,” according to the Nebraska Examiner. Burbank was briefly removed from the ballot by Nebraska’s Secretary of State, Bob Evnen; Evnen argued that, since Burbank has “no intention of holding the office that she purportedly seeks,” she should be removed from the ballot.
However, Democratic Party mega-lawyer Marc Elias successfully sued to get Burbank back on the ballot, preventing Forbes from getting the nomination uncontested.
While Democrats are unlikely to retake the Senate, they have worked to expand their influence into traditionally Republican states. In Montana, where Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.) is retiring, Democrats are in an internal war as they deliberate whether Independent candidate Seth Bodnar should have a clear shot against Republican Kurt Alme. The Reporter has previously covered that Bodnar, like Osborn, has close ties to national Democrats, despite running for office without a stated party preference.