By Aaron Zitner

Dan Osborn, an industrial mechanic running as an independent for the U.S. Senate, has tried to cast himself as an outsider who can take on both parties. TV ads say he will stand up to liberal Democrats to secure the southern border and block progressive policies, positions that help draw the GOP and independent voters he needs to win in deeply red Nebraska.

But, in audio recordings that were leaked in recent weeks Osborn can be heard calling the border wall "a symbol of racism," describing Trump supporters in unflattering terms, with lives that "probably suck," and suggesting that he can't honestly state his views for fear of alienating the GOP voters he needs.

The remarks are the latest example of how an insurgent faction of the left is creating liabilities for the Democratic Party by backing candidates with no track record in office.

The political consultant who helped recruit and guide Osborn, who is now waging his second Senate campaign, is the same one who plucked oyster farmer Graham Platner from obscurity to run for the Senate in Maine. Platner's candidacy imploded in the face of a sexual-assault accusation, which he denied. Democrats nationally are still rebounding from the fallout.

Osborn's comments about Trump voters emerged in audio from this summer that the Omaha World-Herald published last week. "Billy Bob in f-king Red Cloud, Nebraska, who lives next door to the f-king Trump store as you pull into town and is waving the Trump flag, all he knows is he's, like, on the winning team," Osborn said. He said President Trump has been "so effective at taking Billy Bob and his wife Mary Jane or Mary Jo and telling them, look...You're on the winning team. And that's all they care about, because their lives probably suck."

Osborn hasn't challenged the authenticity of the recordings and said on CNN that "I would apologize to those people that might be offended." He said he was empathizing with those voters and saying he understood why they backed "outsider" candidates, such as the president.

"People are pissed off. People are disenfranchised, especially, and that's what Trump captured in Nebraska," he said on CNN.

While Osborn is an independent, Democrats cleared the field of their own candidates to ease his path, and the Nebraska Democratic Party endorsed him. He came within seven points of winning a Senate seat in 2024, also as an independent with no Democrat in the race. That was a close outcome after Democrats lost by nearly 40 points in the prior Senate election.

Voter unease with Trump and the GOP makes the political environment more favorable for Osborn this year, and Republicans are showing signs of nervousness. A new super PAC started placing ads attacking Osborn last week, and it has spent more to reserve airtime than any other advertiser in the race, ad-tracker AdImpact reports. Sen. John Kennedy (R. La.) campaigned with Osborn's opponent, GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts, in Nebraska on Sunday and said he didn't expect to have to stump in such a red state this year.

Osborn's background as an industrial mechanic-ads often show him in a welder's helmet and display his forearm tattoos-fits an image that his backers think will resonate with voters, said Emily Cherniack, president of New Politics, which helps political leaders build public service experience. "He's 'marketable'-but the problem is candidates like this are marketable until they make mistakes, and then they're not," she said.

Cherniak said the leaked recordings showed that Osborn "is not ready for prime time. It's such a steep learning curve to run for high office. And when you put someone on the big stage so fast, it's like Icarus-their wings are going to get burned, and it's a higher fall."

The risk is that Osborn comes across as looking down on Trump supporters, an impression that damaged the campaigns of even more experienced Democrats. Hillary Clinton was at a fundraiser when she described some Trump voters as "a basket of deplorables," which became a defining moment in her 2016 presidential campaign. Barack Obama was a Democratic senator when he said at a fundraiser in 2008 that small-town voters "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...as a way to explain their frustrations."

Jim Kessler, an executive vice president at Third Way, a centrist Democratic policy group, said the danger in Osborn's taped comments is that they reinforce claims from Ricketts that he is secretly a Democrat. "It's a proof point on the Republican side: 'These are Potemkin candidates. They're not who they say they are," Kessler said.

A populist campaign operative, Dan Moraff, helped recruit Osborn to run in 2024 and then recruited Platner in Maine, in both cases working with local unions. He was acting on his belief that voters want candidates who have lived full lives outside politics but who might not bring the fundraising network of established politicians.

"Dan Osborn is a stellar candidate who ran stronger than any other Senate candidate two years ago," Moraff said in a written statement.

The Osborn campaign said that its candidate's background contrasts with that of Ricketts, a former governor whose family owned the brokerage TD Ameritrade and is controlling owner of the Chicago Cubs. "Dan isn't a lifelong politician who's spent his whole life planning to run for office. That's what people like about him," a campaign spokesman said.

Osborn's platform mixes labor rights and raising Social Security taxes on the wealthy with support for such Trump priorities as border security, gun rights and a permanent expansion of no tax on tips or overtime. A feature of his first Senate campaign was his support for Trump's border wall. "If Trump needs help building a wall, well, I'm pretty handy," he said in one ad, which showed him holding a welding torch.

In a July meeting with Hispanic and Black Democrats, captured in a recording published earlier this month by Politico, Osborn criticized the wall. "It's a joke. It's a symbol of racism, really, is what the wall represents. It does nothing, you know," Osborn said.

Also this month, Fox News obtained audio in which Osborn said he needs support from 10% to 15% of Republicans in order to win and that "I have people recording me, so I can't say I want to abolish ICE. I can't say those words."

Osborn's campaign said that he doesn't want to abolish ICE, and that his private conversations are the same as the public ones he has been having.

Write to Aaron Zitner at aaron.zitner@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 23, 2026 20:00 ET (00:00 GMT)