Dan Osborn has qualified for Nebraska Senate race

Independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn has officially qualified for the ballot.

The Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office announced Thursday that Osborn collected more than 6,000 valid signatures, well more than the approximately 4,000 he needed. Osborn had actually turned in more than 12,000 signatures last month, but the Secretary of State’s Office told counties they could stop counting.

Osborn will face off against incumbent Republican Pete Ricketts in November’s election. It’s unclear whether Democrat Cindy Burbank will also be on the ballot. Burbank won the Democratic primary but had previously said she planned to drop out before the general election. However, as of Thursday, she has not done so.

Osborn ran a competitive independent Senate campaign against Deb Fischer in 2024, losing by less than 7 percentage points.

Ricketts and Osborn took dueling shots at each other Thursday after the release of the most recent campaign spending reports from the Federal Election Commission.

Osborn held a press conference in Omaha with supporters, at which he unveiled a giant fake check for $5.25 million, which was the amount of money spent by Ricketts and family members in the second quarter. Ricketts raised $6.4 million overall, and Osborn said that, discounting the personal contributions, his campaign raised more money.

Osborn raised $2.37 million overall, $1.8 million of it from individual donors. Ricketts raised about $470,000 from individual donors.

"A grassroots campaign of everyday Nebraskans outraised a family of billionaires by a million dollars with an average donation of just $40," Osborn said.

Ricketts, in a statement, pointed out that 83% of Osborn's donations came from out of state and 72% of individual donations came through ActBlue, the Democratic Party's fundraising platform.

"Senator Ricketts is investing in his own campaign because he answers to Nebraskans," the statement said. "Dan Osborn is relying on alleged Epstein associates and coastal Democrat billionaire donors to continue funding the half-million dollar family grift he calls a campaign."

Several other candidates are attempting to get onto the ballot via petition, including Austin Ahlman in Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District and Brett Lindstrom in the governor’s race. The candidates have until Aug. 3 to turn in their petitions. Ahlman said last week that he has collected enough signatures, but as of Thursday he had not turned them in.