Third-party U.S. Senate candidate drops out, endorses Osborn over Fischer

Legal Marijuana NOW Party candidate Kerry Eddy has ended her campaign for the U.S. Senate and placed her support behind independent candidate Dan Osborn.

On Tuesday, Eddy said her campaign’s polling showed she did not have much of a chance to defeat incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer in the general election.

Eddy shared polls that found her 16 points behind Fischer in a poll between those two candidates, while a poll with only Osborn and Fischer showed a tied race.

“Going from the polling results, it just seemed like there wasn't much of a chance for me,” Eddy said. “I am fully aware that this is a red state, very conservative, so it's, I think, a choice that I needed to make.”

Eddy said she is endorsing Osborn because of his support for medical marijuana legalization and her sharp disagreements with Fischer on abortion, immigration and LGBTQ policies.

“Osborn has a really good chance," she said. "I believe that he is representative of the working class people of Nebraska, and that is sorely what we need in Washington.”

Osborn responded to Eddy’s endorsement by reiterating his support for medical marijuana legalization.

"Criminalizing patients seeking pain relief is government overreach at its finest,” Osborn said. “I appreciate Ms. Eddy's support and would encourage everyone heading to the polls in November to vote yes on medical cannabis, and yes on Osborn."

Legal Marijuana NOW Party state chair Mark Elworth Jr. said the party had already selected another candidate to run in the general election in anticipation of Eddy's announcement, but had hoped she would stay in the race.

"We are sad that Kerry dropped out," Elworth Jr. said. "We thought maybe she would have changed her mind and we thought maybe she would have ran and had a pretty successful campaign with us."

Elworth Jr. said he believes Eddy was put into the Legal Marijuana NOW Party primary in order to drop out and keep the party from having a candidate in the general election. Eddy defeated Elworth-backed candidate Kenneth Peterson in the May primary with more than 70% of the vote.

"We also don't think this behavior should be tolerated by the Osborn campaign of putting their people into our primaries to fix a race," Elworth Jr. said. "It's just really, really shady."

On Tuesday, Eddy said she has not been in contact with the Osborn campaign and denied getting in the race with the purpose of dropping out.