The Iran War Is Crushing Nebraska Workers. Dan Osborn Is One of Them

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Story by Julian Andreone and Ryan Grim

OMAHA, Nebraska—Dan Osborn pulled his beat-up 2012 Honda Accord into the Anderson Convenience Market gas station in southwest Omaha. It was May 5, and gas had climbed to over $4 a gallon amid the U.S.-Iran war. But as he filled his tank and the digits on the display surged rapidly higher, a pair of thoughts struck him: His mortgage was still unpaid and he had just quit his steamfitter job two weeks earlier so that he could campaign for Senate full time. He quickly popped the lever to staunch the bleeding.

“For the first time I can remember in my adult life, I had to stop the pump short at 30 bucks,” Osborn recalled. “My mind was floating, then I looked and I thought, ‘Oh crap, my mortgage is coming out this week.’ So I’m like, boop, and I popped it, and I looked at my bank account, and I’m like, ‘Okay, 30 bucks is gonna get me through the week.’”

Osborn is challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, scion of a billionaire father who founded a financial firm that became TD Ameritrade. Ricketts, the former governor, was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Ben Sasse in January 2023—a week after current Gov. Jim Pillen, whose campaign raked in a $100,000 direct contribution from Pete Ricketts and roughly $1.3 million in Ricketts family-funded ad spending from Conservative Nebraska PAC, was sworn into office.

Polls dating back to April 2025 consistently show Osborn trailing Ricketts by one or two points, within the margin of error, until a statewide Tavern Research poll this month showed Osborn surging ahead to take a 47% to 42% lead over Ricketts. The same poll from the Democratic-leaning firm had Osborn boasting a +11 net favorability among Nebraska voters to Ricketts’ -7. Days later, a Zenith Research poll conducted only in Nebraska’s first congressional district showed Osborn leading Ricketts by 6%, with even higher favorability ratings among independent voters.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/i/199467327/the-iran-war-is-crushing-nebraska-workers-dan-osborn-is-one-of-them