Pete Ricketts claims victory over Dan Osborn in US Senate race

OMAHA — Nebraska Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts declared victory in his reelection bid over registered nonpartisan Dan Osborn Tuesday, even as results from the race were still coming in. 

The Associated Press called the race at 2:27 a.m. Wednesday. Ricketts had 50.2% of the vote and Osborn 43.9%. 

As it stood based on unofficial results available early Wednesday, Osborn, a former union leader, appeared to have improved on his performance compared to his 2024 challenge of U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, which he lost by 6 percentage points.

“The Democrat Social America found out tonight that socialism does not work in Nebraska,” Ricketts told the audience at his watch party. “They came here with their fake labels, their fake candidates, thinking that they could just come in here and fool Nebraskans … They had nothing but contempt for us, but we showed them that Nebraskans will not be fooled by the socialists.” 

The Ricketts campaign and national Republicans have spent a year and a half painting Dan Osborn as a Democrat, despite his nonpartisan status. The race has heavily focused on Osborn’s independence, as Osborn often had to play defense against controversies amplified by Ricketts and Republicans, including multiple audio leaks. 

Ricketts thanked his campaign for tracking Dan Osborn, as they were “able to expose” Osborn as “the fraud that he is.”

“While we’re not going to go into the names of the people who were there tracking him, they played a pivotal role in this,” Ricketts said.

The Senate race has had twists and turns, with lawsuits, candidates and new political parties facing allegations of being spoilers, and candidates suspending their campaigns to support Osborn. The race had a lot of mudslinging and negative ads. 

Though Osborn told the audience at his Omaha watch party Tuesday night that things didn’t look good for his campaign, he said there was a “5% chance” he could win, depending on the next batch of votes in more urban areas of the state. 

“Depending on how it turns out … I would just urge Sen. Ricketts to take care of the Coalition of the people here tonight,” Osborn said. “We might not have won this election tonight; we must continue to demand better from our government.”

Osborn added, “Unfortunately, money won.” 

Candidates running with two new political parties received a combined total of 6 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results early Wednesday. Working People Party’s Robin Richards received 2.6 percent of the vote, while America First Party’s Chuck Conboy got 1.2 percent of the vote.

Legal Marijuana NOW’s Mike Marvin, who suspended his campaign but was still on the ballot, got 2.2 percent of the vote.

Ricketts will serve his first full six-year term in the U.S. Senate. The former two-time governor easily beat Omaha Democrat Preston Love Jr. in a 2024 special election to finish the final two years of former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who resigned to lead the University of Florida.