# Dan Osborn Independent candidate who nearly defeated Republican incumbent Deb Fischer in the 2024 Nebraska U.S. Senate race, running on a pro-worker, anti-corporate [[Populism]] platform with no party backing. Osborn is a union leader whose credentials are rooted in the 2021 Kellogg's strike, making him one of the few recent candidates whose working-class identity is not performed but documented on the picket line. ## Background Osborn served as president of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) Local 50G at the Kellogg's cereal plant in Omaha, Nebraska. In 2021 he led his local through a 77-day strike against Kellogg's over the company's two-tier wage system, which paid newer workers significantly less for identical work. The strike drew national attention and ended with Kellogg's agreeing to a path to top-tier wages for all workers. Osborn emerged as a nationally recognized figure in the [[Labor Movement]]. ## The 2024 Senate race Osborn ran as an independent against Republican incumbent Deb Fischer in deep-red Nebraska — a state [[Donald Trump]] carried by more than 20 points in the [[2024 Presidential Election]]. No Democratic candidate entered the race, creating a straight independent-vs-Republican contest. His platform was populist in the original sense: pro-worker, anti-corporate, focused on wages, healthcare, and the cost of living. He was opposed by both party establishments. He rejected the Democratic label while running on economics that would have fit comfortably in the progressive wing of the [[Democratic Party]]. The campaign demonstrated that the word "populist" still has real content when a candidate can point to an actual strike rather than rally rhetoric. Osborn lost, but his performance — competitive in a state where Democrats are non-viable — suggested a lane for economically populist independents in places where the Democratic brand is toxic but corporate Republicanism has failed to deliver for working people. ## Why he's in the KB Osborn represents the road not taken in American [[Populism]]. Where [[Donald Trump]] and the [[MAGA]] movement offer cultural grievance wrapped in populist language, Osborn offered the material version — actual labor organizing, actual confrontation with corporate power. His near-miss in Nebraska raises the question of whether a genuine working-class politics could compete with the faux-populism that currently dominates the [[Republican Party]], if it could get past the structural barriers of the two-party system and the [[Campaign Finance]] ecosystem that starves independent candidates. The Kellogg's strike itself connects to the broader [[Labor Movement]] revival (Starbucks, Amazon, UPS) that has been one of the underreported stories of the 2020s. Osborn's candidacy is the electoral expression of that energy. ## See Also - [[Populism]] - [[Labor Movement]] - [[Campaign Finance]] - [[2024 Presidential Election]] - [[Democratic Party]] - [[Republican Party]] - [[MAGA]]