The Cornhusker State features two Senate elections this year, with Sen. Deb Fischer running for a third term and appointed Sen. Pete Ricketts vying to finish the remaining two years of former Sen. Ben Sasse’s term. But it’s not that special election that is drawing renewed interest. Fischer faces a unique challenge from independent candidate Dan Osborn who’s aiming to build a coalition of Democrats, independents and disaffected Republicans to pull off a monumental upset.

Osborn is a union leader and Navy veteran hoping that a non-traditional background can help him overperform in the state’s rural areas and with blue-collar voters. The former mechanic at a Kellogg’s plant in Omaha helped lead a strike in 2021 that led to a 77-day stalemate. President Joe Biden condemned the cereal company’s plans to replace workers before an agreement was reached to revise the factory’s wage system.

Kellogg’s eventually fired Osborn on what he says were flimsy charges he was watching Netflix while at work (he has said he had comedy shows on while doing his work reports for background noise), and he

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