Independent Dan Osborn is officially on Nebraska's November ballot, the secretary of state's office announced Thursday, verifying at least 6,096 valid signatures against the 4,000 required.
A day later, Democratic nominee Cindy Burbank, who won the May primary on a promise to step aside and let Osborn take on incumbent Republican Sen. Ricketts in a head-to-head race, filed paperwork declining the nomination.
If it holds, that leaves the two-way race Osborn and state Democrats have wanted: independent against Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts, with no Democrat splitting the anti-Ricketts vote.
The state of the race
The money tells the structural story. Through June 30, Osborn had raised about $5.75 million for the cycle—roughly 96% from individual donors, nothing from his own pocket—and held $2.42 million on hand. Ricketts has raised $11.2 million through June 30, with $5.25 million as a contribution to his own campaign, $3.6 million from other committees, and $2.2 million from individuals.
Head-to-head polling has been close but almost entirely sponsored by Osborn’s campaign or groups aligned with the candidate. Recent polling has Osborn +5 on the incumbent, with earlier polls showing him down 1. No poll shows the Republican pulling clear in a state Trump carried by 20 points.
The Fight Over Letting Democratic Candidate Burbank Leave
This race has been a mess from the start. The Democratic primary featured a Trump supporter and the eventual winner, Cindy Burbank, who won the nomination promising to drop out of the race and let Osborn take on Ricketts head-to-head. She's filed to remove herself from the ballot in November, but her exit isn't guaranteed.
Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen said he would ask Attorney General Mike Hilgers whether the state must honor her withdrawal, filed roughly two weeks before the August 3 deadline. The irony: Evnen's office spent the spring trying to keep Burbank off the primary ballot as a bad-faith candidate, only for the state Supreme Court to reinstate her.
Now it's weighing whether to force a nominee to stay on a ballot she's asked to leave—keeping a Democrat in a race the Democratic Party has tried to clear for Osborn.
What To Watch
Hilgers' guidance is the immediate flashpoint—whether Nebraska accepts Burbank's declination or tries to keep her name on the ballot, and whether that spawns another lawsuit before August 3.
Beyond that, watch Republican Party spending: with the Supreme Court's NRSC v. FEC ruling lifting coordination limits, a national party is now free to spend unlimited sums defining Osborn—firepower that landed late against him when he ran in 2024.