Nebraska independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn has presented himself to voters in the deep-red state as a political moderate, a characterization that has fueled his unexpectedly strong polling performance against Republican incumbent Deb Fischer in the final weeks leading up to the 2024 election.
But a Washington Free Beacon review of campaign finance disclosures found that Osborn's Senate bid began in a different vein. During his campaign's formative stages in 2023, Osborn joined forces with consultants and firms openly associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, including one activist who detailed in a 2021 op-ed how to achieve "socialism in our lifetime" through shrewd politicking. And now, during the final stages of his campaign, Osborn has earned endorsements from socialist publications and is being boosted behind the scenes by the Democratic political apparatus eager to block a Republican victory in Nebraska.
Osborn's socialist campaign aides include his former finance director Brad Chester, a member of the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America who received $4,250 from the Osborn campaign in November 2023 for fundraising consulting services. Prior to joining the Osborn campaign, Chester served as a regional field director for Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I., Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign and worked as a staffer for the Center for American Progress, a prominent left-wing think tank. Chester stopped working for Osborn's campaign in December 2023, according to his LinkedIn page.
As Chester served as Osborn's finance director, the candidate's Senate campaign paid the consulting firm Bread and Roses nearly $7,500 for digital consulting services. The company shares a name with the Democratic Socialists of America's Bread and Roses caucus, which is a subsection of "Marxist organizers." The consulting firm is managed by former staffers for Sanders and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Cori Bush (D., Mo.), and Ro Khanna (D., Calif.).
While Osborn has since portrayed himself as a centrist, the spending decisions align with his private rhetoric. Speaking to a small group of supporters in September, for example, Osborn expressed his "love" for Sanders, according to the Washington Examiner. "I love Bernie," he said. "But the bottom line is we do have to peel off some conservatives."
Before he joined Osborn's Senate campaign, Chester in 2021 wrote an op-ed for DSA Organizer in which he called on his fellow travelers to put aside their pride and leverage existing party infrastructure to "prioritize victory" for socialists.
"The ballot line is a tool, and we must utilize that tool in pursuit of our objective: socialism in our lifetime," Chester wrote. "A serious electoral strategy for the left must seek to overcome the actual barriers facing socialist candidates, utilizing the ballot line as a tool to ensure the greatest chance of success, and building political independence for the socialist movement through a 'party surrogate' model."
Chester says his strategy works. He boasted during an April 2021 interview that running openly socialist candidates in Democratic primaries has delivered wins for the left-wing movement.
Two years later, Chester found himself managing the finances of Osborn's nascent independent campaign for Senate in Nebraska, a deep-red state where Democrats have little chance of success in a statewide contest. Osborn was a natural fit to run in the state as an independent. He doesn't shy away from the fact that his political positions are malleable and liable to change depending on the political winds of the day.
"My policies are plastic, they're malleable," Osborn said during a podcast interview in April. "I can change as I go, and as people change my mind, but certainly, there's got to be a happy medium."
In addition to Chester and Bread and Roses, the socialist magazine Jacobin has argued that Osborn would be a political asset for Sanders should the Nebraskan win his election to the Senate. "US politics would look very different if Sanders were joined in the Senate by even a small handful of labor-backed independents from red states," the magazine wrote in September.
Osborn has also earned praise from Christie Roberts, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who said in a private fundraising call in September with Democratic donors that Osborn "has exactly the kind of biography that can cut across party lines," NOTUS reported.
It's not clear why Osborn hired Chester or worked with Bread and Roses. The Osborn campaign told the Free Beacon that neither has worked for the campaign in nearly a year.
"Neither Brad Chester nor Bread and Roses have been involved with the campaign for 11 months," the Osborn campaign spokesman said. "Dan is supported by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents who want to secure the border, bring down inflation, protect individual freedoms, and deliver for regular Nebraskans."
Recent polls show Osborn, a Navy veteran, within the margin of error against Fischer, the incumbent Republican Nevada senator seeking a third term in November. Brent Comstock, a Democratic political consultant, told The Hill that Osborn is "appealing to the average moderate Nebraskan" with his closing campaign message.
Osborn has made a show of rejecting formal support from Democrats, saying after the Nebraska primary election that he would not be "charmed" or "schmoozed" by any political party. And he has attacked his Republican opponent in campaign ads, claiming she is "bought by the special interests."
But behind the scenes, Osborn has courted Democratic donors to help fuel his campaign. He is raising campaign funds through ActBlue, the behemoth progressive fundraising platform that has helped raise over $15 billion for "Democratic candidates & progressive causes" since 2004. And in September he joined a call with prospective Democratic donors where he smeared his Republican opponent's staff as "Hitler Youth frat boys," the New York Post reported.
Outside dark money groups funded by prominent liberal megadonors have also spent millions boosting Osborn's candidacy. The Retire Career Politicians PAC, financed by the Democratic dark money behemoth Sixteen Thirty Fund, has spent over $3 million in support of Osborn's candidacy. And Nebraska Railroaders for Public Safety, bankrolled by Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, spent $15,000 on pro-Osborn mailers in December 2023.