Soros-linked dark money group props up Nebraska independent candidate in key Senate race

A Nebraska Senate race has emerged as one to watch with only weeks until the election, as an independent candidate with controversial backing vies to unseat Sen. Debbie Fischer, R-Neb.

Dan Osborn, a mechanic and union leader, is running as an independent against Fischer, and has prompted two prominent political handicappers to change their ratings of the race, indicating heightened competition. 

Both the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics recently shifted the race from "Solid" or "Safe" Republican to "Likely Republican." The race is now alongside that of Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., in each rating system. Sabato's Crystal Ball also ranks the Nebraska Senate race in the same category as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, but Cook has moved the Texas match-up to a more competitive placement. 

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Osborn is being backed by two outside PACs called Retire Career Politicians and the Nebraska Railroaders for Public Safety. The former has spent $3,004,274 on behalf of Osborn and the latter has doled out more than $400,000 in support of his candidacy so far, as well as over $20,000 explicitly against Fischer, according to OpenSecrets.

Both PACs have recently come under scrutiny for their controversial monetary backers. Democrat megadonor and Vice President Kamala Harris supporter Reid Hoffman, who co-founded LinkedIn, gave $50,000 to Nebraska Railroaders for Public Safety last year. 

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Retire Career Politicians received $800,000 from the controversial dark money group the Sixteen Thirty Fund in a matter of months. The group is operated by left-wing Washington, D.C., political consulting firm, Arabella Advisers.

While the Sixteen Thirty Fund does not reveal its donors' identities, billionaire George Soros' group, the Open Society Foundations, has granted the fund more than $75 million between 2016 and 2022, according to Open Society Foundations' website. 

The Sixteen Thirty Fund also gave $50,000 to the Nebraska Railroaders for Public Safety. 

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Mike Helmink, the co-founder and treasurer of Nebraska Railroaders for Public Safety told Fox News Digital they "reached out to everybody, anybody and everybody to come in on railroad safety issues and independent politics. And what we found is a lot of people on the progressive side and the Democrat side want to participate. And what we've found is the Republicans have really circled the wagons around Deb and all of the money and all the commits have gone to Deb."

He pointed out that without a Democrat candidate in the race, "a lot of consultants and firms don't have commits if they're more of a Democrat leaning firm."

"We really tried to get everybody and get a cross section and really build an organization going forward. You know, we would like to build this for the future, not just a one time and we're done. You know, we would like to get this and be successful and get a win, get Dan elected and then continue moving forward on the independents and also on railroad safety," he explained.

Fischer told Fox News Digital, "I think Nebraskans are going to be really, really interested in learning more about the dark money that is spending millions of dollars his way." 

"Democrat dark money groups are spending millions of dollars backing Bernie Sanders acolyte Dan Osborn because he is a true radical. Osborn supports amnesty for illegal immigrants, has called for illegal immigrants to fill open jobs in Nebraska instead of Americans, and even wants to give Social Security benefits to illegals. Those aren’t Nebraska values," National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Communications Director Mike Berg said in a statement. 

One of Osborn's ads notably takes shots at Fischer for donations to her campaign from lobbyists and special interest groups, comparing her to a race car driver with patches on her jacket. "The only thing on the back of my jacket is Nebraska," he said in the spot. 

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The independent candidate has made his non-affiliation with a political party central to his campaign. However, this has been dashed by reporting from two outlets suggesting that Osborn was once a Democrat and that he did not consider himself an independent until 2016.

"I became an independent in 2016, really, after the Trump-Hillary debates. I just kind of became disenfranchised with the two parties, and it all seemed a little fake to me," he previously told Semafor.

But his campaign has disputed this and claimed that he was misquoted. Osborn told a local outlet, "We were talking about how traditionally people in labor are Democrats." 

Retire Career Politicians and Osborn's campaign did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication.