Cornhusker Jackpot

Dan Osborn is a case study in volatile voters, and an investable bet for a healthier democracy

What is the best use of money to beat the authoritarian threat and sickening polarization that threaten America?

For three years, we have investigated this question along with the most fascinating thinkers and doers from political science to technology to campaigning. How much is a US House seat worth? What does “The Chart” on midterm spending tell us?

There are some truisms: the political marketplace is bonkers inefficient, volatility among voters is underrated, and candidates weighed down by a party brand can achieve “escape velocity” by differentiating.

Those themes are all manifest in the US Senate race in Nebraska between independent Dan Osborn and GOP incumbent Deb Fischer. This is a live case study to answer the question: how much is a US Senate seat worth?

We have some comparables: in 2022, the Georgia race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker cost at least $500 million ($250 million by candidates, $233 million by outside groups not factoring in other spending on voter turnout, education, etc.). 

But that race was a toss-up. How much is it worth to have a marginal shot? Florida’s US Senate seat was only forecast to have a 15% chance of flipping at its max height and saw roughly $150 million in spending

So how much is it worth having a 10% chance of winning a Senate seat?

Financially, backing into prior spending would figure that if a seat is worth $500 million, then a 10% chance is worth $50 million. The zero sum nature of partisan politics amplifies the value of bringing a new seat onto the map.¹

And for democracy, there are even bigger positive externalities: when a seat is “Safe Republican” or “Safe Democrat,” that means voters have no meaningful choice - and incumbents must move to the center to meet voters where they are.²

Deb Fischer’s Senate seat is no longer safe.

There is much to learn. But the question here is not just theoretical, it is how much will be invested over the next three weeks in independent US Senate candidate Dan Osborn. We’ve been following the Osborn campaign since before it launched, but to truly understand the opportunity we asked former Alaska state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins to break down the opportunity. Widely known among democracy reformers as JKT, he’s been at this for a while. Check out this 2018 Politico story on how JKT and compatriots in Alaska worked across party lines, harnessed volatility in the electorate, and exploited every angle to give voters a meaningful choice.³

Below is JKT’s case for turning a red state purple, without a D next to the candidate’s name.

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The Highest-ROI Political Investment

This year’s electoral cycle is absolutely saturated with money — many billions of dollars, all-in, across House, Senate, and Presidential races in aggregate. And as we approach November 5, it might seem like the cake is mostly baked: no additional ingredients are likely to change the end product.

And while we don’t mean to endorse fait accompli thinking, there is one radical, dazzling outlier to any such assessment: The candidate is Dan Osborn. He’s an independent running for U.S. Senate in Nebraska against Sen. Deb Fischer. 

As far as candidate contributions go, if you have dry powder for the 2024 cycle, you should be sending it into Nebraska literally right now. Dan Osborn is objectively the best ROI, by far, for any federal race in the country.

I visited Dan in Omaha fall 2023 and have followed the campaign closely. It’s been a slow burn that has had a lot of fundamental potential since day one on the basis of the overwhelming strength of Osborn as an authentic working-class candidate and the overall disruptive nature of his independent candidacy. More recently, this fundamental promise has converted into some political gravity-defying polling data.

The five most recent publicly-available polls on the Osborn-Fischer U.S Senate race:

In all of these polls, Trump is running about 20% ahead Harris, which means Osborn is overperforming Democratic baseline by about 20%. This is what we mean by gravity-defying overperformance.

Now consider the Osborn race’s competitiveness in the context of the other competitive Senate races this cycle:

Now consider the Osborn’s relative competitiveness relative to the relative resourcing of the cycle’s other Senate races through the last filing period:

Osborn clocks in at around 2% mostly because polls earlier this cycle — when he still was relatively unknown — had him running far behind Fischer. Recent polling illustrates his strength, and the closeness of the race.⁴

The relative value per marginal dollar contributed is blindingly evident. If some “bandwagon effect” is helpful to getting to yes throwing as many dollars as you possible can to support Osborn, we’ve got you covered there, too:

• Rolling Stone, July 28: “Can a Mechanic Running as an Independent Steal a Senate Seat From Republicans?”

• Slate, September 3: “Could Nebraska Cost Republicans the Senate?”

• Washington Post, October 4: “In Nebraska, independent Senate candidate gives GOP a competitive race”

• The Hill, October 6, “GOP looks to avoid disaster in Nebraska Senate race”

• CBS News, October 8: “Nebraska Senate race surprise: It's ‘more competitive than it should be’”

• The Nation, October 8: “Meet Dan Osborn, the Heartland Populist From Nebraska Who’s Running for the Senate”

• Time, October 10: “Nebraska Senate May Be the Race No One Saw Coming”

Even if Osborn had raised x10 what he’s raised at this point, his race would still be a stunning case-study in underinvestment. But at, $1.6M in funding raised per Q2, don’t run, but sprint, towards Osborn’s donation page, and punch in as big a number in the contribution field as you possibly can.

And after you’ve donated, forward this to everyone you know who cares about the future of the U.S. Senate.

1. Democrats are finding this out in Maryland, where the Senate candidacy of popular moderate former Governor Larry Hogan is forcing Chuck Schumer to spend in a state Joe Biden won by 33 points

2. Even extremists like Lauren Boebert moderated after facing a serious challenger in a seat previously thought to be “Safe Republican”

3. We covered this style of state-level centrist insurgency in Laboratories of Centrism, and are eager to see it play out in Nebraska on the federal level (recall our Flip Five campaign for a cross-partisan Speaker after Kevin McCarthy)

4. That even holds true for a poll released by Deb Fischer (not yet included in the averages) showing her up by 6%. According to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, such internal polls have historically “overstated their party’s candidate by an average of 4 or 5 percentage points”.