Independent U.S. Senate Candidate Dan Osborn Officially on the Ballot

OMAHA, NE — Supporters and press in attendance at a press conference on Thursday learned in real time with Dan Osborn that the signatures he needed to appear on the Senate ballot had been verified by the Secretary of State’s office. In June, the Osborn campaign submitted over 12,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office, well over the 4000 needed to be considered on the ballot. The amount of petitions gathered is indicative of a strong grassroots effort to counter the money injected into the campaign by his opponent, Pete Ricketts. The topic of the press conference where the petition verification was revealed was centered around the $5.25 million of family money that Ricketts had invested into his own campaign, and how, by using grassroots methods, the Osborn campaign outraised Ricketts by over a million dollars. The Osborn campaign has done 7 town halls since last Tuesday, July 7, while Ricketts has not done one in 447 days. 

The following is a statement from Dan Osborn:

“Today is a great day for the Osborn campaign. First, after accounting the $5.25 million check he wrote himself, we outraised our opponent using grassroots methods and an average donation of only around $40. But, we also found out that all of our hard work paid off, and that the petitions we submitted to the Secretary of State's office in June were accepted.

“We are officially on the ballot for November. 

“I want to thank everyone who worked so hard gathering petitions. We submitted over 12,000 to the Secretary of State’s office in June. We gathered those petitions using a strong volunteer network across all three congressional districts, not paid petition gatherers. 

“This is, and will always be, a people-powered campaign. Ricketts doesn’t understand what that means. He dumped $5.25 million dollars into his campaign to run attack ads against me on TV. While the most recent batch went live, I was in places like Sidney, Broken Bow, Alliance, and Scottsbluff talking to real voters and learning about their concerns. We will never take corporate money or answer to party bosses, because this campaign will only be accountable to Nebraska voters.”