Kerry Eddy leaves Nebraska’s U.S. Senate race, endorses Osborn over Fischer

LINCOLN — Nebraska U.S. Senate candidate Kerry Eddy quit the race Tuesday, and, despite some anger from her party, endorsed nonpartisan Senate candidate Dan Osborn, an Omaha union leader.

The Legal Marijuana NOW Party nominee had pledged during the primary race to step aside if it would ensure that Nebraskans who want marijuana legalized can coalesce around a single candidate.

She had written on her campaign website that she would exit if it became clear that Osborn, a supporter of marijuana legalization, was more likely than Eddy to beat U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, who opposes legalization.

“I’ll make sure that we all unite around whoever the strongest candidate is to defeat Deb Fischer in November,” she wrote at the time, spurring pushback from members of her party. 

Eddy says she wanted to win

On Tuesday, Eddy said that she ran to win but that her campaign’s polling two weeks ago showed her farther behind Fischer than Osborn was, based on his latest campaign poll. She said the poll results encouraged her to withdraw. 

In response to a question from the Nebraska Examiner, she denied that she ran from the start to clear the field of competing candidates and help Osborn draw a larger percentage of the vote against Fischer.

Eddy has told the Examiner that she was also dealing with family health issues, including two loved ones with cancer, an explanation she repeated Tuesday.

“The possibility (of withdrawal) was always there, and I was always very clear about that,” she said. 

She also acknowledged that part of her decision was calculated to give Osborn a better chance. Political observers said clearing the ballot of other names helps avoid splitting the opposition vote.

“It’s been a discussion among us left-leaning folks in my community that there’s a potential for just that small amount of votes that could go kind of out in the ether,” Eddy said. 

Her bid was backed by Osborn supporters

What Eddy didn’t say is that her primary bid received $34,000 in outside spending help from a Super PAC supporting Osborn, according to OpenSecrets.org, a website that monitors campaign finance. 

That amount of money is unheard of for a Legal Marijuana NOW Party primary, said Mark Elworth Jr., party chairman. It overwhelmed other candidates who had hoped to represent the group in the Senate race, he said.

The party represents about 0.006% of Nebraska’s broader electorate — 7,014 registered voters out of 1.23 million — according to the latest registration tallies by the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office.

At a press conference Tuesday, Eddy denied ever working with or coordinating with the Osborn campaign. Elworth disagreed and said Eddy has been dishonest with his party’s supporters. 

Elworth contends Eddy never planned to represent the party and sought to leave Osborn as Fischer’s only challenger on the ballot. He has said her actions undermine confidence in the political process. 

He also said the Legal Marijuana NOW Party is likely to run another candidate for the Senate race, although he declined to share a name. Eddy said she would prefer that the party not run a candidate.

“We were hoping she’d stay on there,” Elworth said of Eddy. “I guess she works for Dan Osborn. We pretty much do have a candidate picked out. We need to contact that candidate … and we’ll announce it.”

Under state law, a recognized party like Legal Marijuana NOW can submit a new nominee if a previous nominee formally withdraws. This year, the deadline for replacing Eddy is Sept. 3.

Osborn, for his part, angered leaders of the Nebraska Democratic Party when he wooed the party, indicating before the primary he wanted its endorsement, and then shunned party endorsements immediately after the primary. 

On Tuesday, Osborn said he appreciated Eddy’s support but said he would not accept any politician’s endorsement. 

Osborn defended legalization of marijuana.

“Criminalizing patients seeking pain relief is government overreach at its finest,” he said in a statement.

Fischer’s campaign had no immediate comment on Eddy’s withdrawal.

Polls have been the talk of the race

Once again on Tuesday, polls are the talk of the Osborn-Fischer race. Both campaigns have emphasized internal polls. Eddy pointed to a poll Tuesday, as well.

She said a poll conducted for her campaign indicated that she had 36% support in a hypothetical head-to-head against Fischer. She did not share details.

Osborn’s campaign has highlighted some favorable polling results to say his race is closer than the political experts think and that he is within striking distance of Fischer.

A recent Osborn poll indicated a 42%-42% two-way race against Fischer with about 16% undecided, and a 4.9% margin of error, the pollster confirmed. Osborn’s poll did not survey Eddy.

Fischer’s campaign recently shared a poll of its own hewing closer to Republicans’ 2-to-1 registration advantage over Democrats in Nebraska.

That poll indicated she was leading Osborn 50%-24%, with 9% support for Eddy.

“Nebraskans know and trust Deb Fischer, and aren’t fooled by … bogus polls, or political science experiments pretending to be U.S Senate campaigns,” Fischer campaign spokesman Derek Oden said. “We will continue working hard to build on her broad base of support. She takes no vote for granted.”

Local political observers questioned whether the race was as close as Osborn’s poll indicated or as far apart as Fischer’s indicated. 

Oddly, both the Fischer and Osborn campaigns were polling on the same days this time, July 8-11.

The results were so wildly different that local polling professionals and academics struggled to fully explain it.

Fischer’s poll surveyed 698 likely Nebraska voters by cell phone and landline, using conservative pollster Torchlight Strategies.

Osborn’s poll surveyed of 500 likely Nebraska voters by phone and text-to-web, using left-leaning Impact Research and right-leaning Red Wave Strategy Group. 

Some questions raised

Some pollsters said Osborn’s poll looked as if respondents were slightly more educated than Nebraska’s overall population. Some said the order of questions in the poll risked planting the seed for an independent candidacy.

Dan Osborn, nonpartisan

University of Nebraska-Lincoln political scientist Dona-Gene Barton, a polling expert, said Osborn’s poll asked whether voters would be open to supporting an independent candidate over a Republican before asking who they would support.

It also identified Osborn, a nonpartisan, as an independent. And it identified Fischer as a Republican shortly after asking respondents who they would support. That, she said, could have nudged the results.

Barton said Fischer’s poll may have planted a similar thought by describing Osborn as a nonpartisan candidate and pitting him against a partisan one, but that, too, likely nudged the results, but wouldn’t necessarily account for so wide a gap between the two polls. 

“The main difference I see is in the different primes at the beginning of the surveys, to think about being open to voting for an independent versus preferring to vote for a partisan,” she said.

Kerrey-Fischer polling margins in 2012

Fischer’s campaign and some of her longtime critics pointed to recent electoral history in doubting Osborn’s poll. 

The last time polling in a Nebraska Senate race showed a margin as close as Osborn’s indicated was 2012, when Fischer was competing against Bob Kerrey.

U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.

An Omaha World-Herald poll in October of that year indicated Kerrey, a former two-term governor and U.S. senator, was within 3 percentage points of Fischer. 

Fischer was a GOP state senator at the time. She had bested the state’s attorney general and treasurer in a bruising three-way primary race. She beat Kerrey that November, 58%-42%. 

Neither Kerrey nor State Sen. Jane Raybould, Fischer’s 2018 Democratic opponent, ever saw internal polling showing a tie.

“No, we never had polling that showed we were tied or ahead,” Raybould said. “Sadly.”

Kerrey had almost universal name ID. Osborn’s own poll showed him known by a third of Nebraskans.

Nonpartisan label could help

Osborn’s campaign is gathering signatures to appear on the November ballot. A campaign spokesman said his team plans to turn in the signatures Aug. 19.

Osborn’s campaign and some Democrats argue that his nonpartisan label could help him.

They point to two other polls Osborn’s campaign shared: one from Public Policy Polling in May (37%-33%) and one from November 2023 paid for by Osborn-aligned Super PAC Nebraska Railroaders for Public Safety (36%-35%).

Some Osborn supporters have said they want him to be a test case for whether the Democratic Party label is a negative for candidates running in Republican-heavy states.

But Democratic leaders and others have said that without the party’s backing, he might struggle to consolidate left-leaning support.

State Democratic chair Jane Kleeb tweeted about her frustrations with Osborn after he told Rolling Stone he had been clear all along about not wanting a party’s support.

“How do you say you want nothing to do with the Democratic Party and then ask us for our votes?” Kleeb asked. “Makes no sense.”

She also says Osborn should stop saying he doesn’t know who he will caucus with if he wins — Republicans or Democrats. Osborn has also not endorsed anyone in the presidential race.

He needs to pick a side, Kleeb said, preferably hers. 

Editor’s note: This story has been revised to correct the outside money spent in support of Eddy’s primary campaign from a super PAC supporting Osborn.