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OMAHA — After months of campaigning, it’s official: Independent candidate Dan Osborn will be on the November ballot in a heated race for U.S. Senate against incumbent Republican Pete Ricketts.
The Nebraska Secretary of State’s office announced Thursday that Osborn had collected at least 6,096 valid signatures to qualify for the election. That’s well over 4,000 signatures required.
“The core message of our campaign is that hard-working Nebraskans deserve a seat at the table in Washington D.C.,” Osborn said Thursday during an impromptu press conference in Omaha.
Osborn, who has worked to appeal to the working class, also took the opportunity to criticize Rickets for pumping his own fortune into the race. The latest fundraising reports showed Ricketts loaned his campaign $5.2 million.
“Ricketts believes spending is free speech, he believes his voice is louder because he can write a bigger check,” Osborn said.
The Ricketts campaign said in a statement Ricketts is “investing in his own campaign because he answers to Nebraskans.”
Nebraska Democratic Senate nominee Cindy Burbank is also still in the Senate race. Burbank has previously said she would drop out if she didn’t have a clear path to victory in the general election.
To appear on the general election ballot as a nonpartisan, a candidate must submit 4,000 signatures from registered voters, including 750 in each of Nebraska’s three congressional districts. The Osborn campaign announced last month it had submitted roughly 12,500 signatures to the Secretary of State.
The election is Nov. 3.
