Dan Osborn is an Independent candidate running for a second consecutive cycle for U.S. Senate in Nebraska, this time challenging Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts after a closer-than-expected 2024 run against then-Sen. Deb Fischer, which he lost by about 7 points in a performance analysts called the strongest ever for an independent in a Nebraska Senate race. In July 2026, Osborn officially qualified for the November ballot after submitting more than 12,000 signatures, well above the roughly 4,000 required.

A 1994 graduate of Roncalli Catholic High School, Osborn followed his father into the U.S. Navy, serving four years as a Store Keeper aboard the USS Constellation (CV-64) and completing two Western Pacific and two RIMPAC deployments. He later joined the Nebraska Army National Guard, attended tank school in Boise, Idaho, and also served time in the Tennessee National Guard. In 2004, he began working as an industrial mechanic at the Kellogg's plant in Omaha, eventually rising to president of his union, BCTGM Local 50G, and leading the successful 2021 Kellogg's strike in Omaha that defeated proposed benefit cuts and helped keep the plant operating through 2026.

Osborn is running as an independent who says he won't take corporate money, framing the race around what he describes as a fight between working people and the "billionaire class," pointing to Ricketts' personal wealth and his family's ownership of the Chicago Cubs. He lives in Omaha with his wife, Megan, and their three children.