A union leader in Nebraska is trying to go to the Senate about the strength of Labor

In 2021, when the first Halloween decorations came out in Omaha, Neb., a mechanic named Dan Osborn led 500 of his fellow union members out of the Kellogg's cereal factory on F Street and to the picket lines.

The strike, which involved more than 1,400 workers at several factories, would last a difficult 77 days. through brutal storms and imported strikebreakers and the threat of summary dismissal, which caught President Biden's attention. A first contract was rejected outright by the union, after which a second finally ended the strike just before Christmas.

Now Osborn, 48, is trying to do something considerably more difficult: win a U.S. Senate seat as an independent in the deep-red state of Nebraska.

Mr. Osborn's long term offer Defeating Deb Fischer, Nebraska's Republican senior senator, in November, or even coming close, will test whether the rising power of an energetic labor movement can translate into high elective office during an election year when working-class voters are likely will decide the next president. and the direction of the land.

Western Nebraska's railroad unions first approached him last year to make a bid December survey from a left-wing group called Change Research polled Mr. Osborn over Ms. Fischer, with 40 percent over her 38 percent. It's a dubious result, as even Mr. Osborn's supporters admit, but enough to capture the imagination in a one-party state that has long retreated from the national political conversation.

With no Democrat in the race, the Nebraska Democratic Party will likely endorse Mr. Osborn at a meeting on March 2, party chairman Jane Kleeb said, although Mr. Osborn said he was not sure he wanted to. The state AFL-CIO will endorse him at a meeting in late March, and national unions are watching him closely.

But can a union leader with no political experience find an agenda that transcends the two political parties and appeals only to the workers' portfolio? And can that leader find the money to spread that message further west, beyond the urban centers of Omaha and Lincoln?

“I'm up against a major American company,” Mr. Osborn said as he cut into a steak Tuesday evening. “I stood up for what I thought was right, and I won.”

The Fischer campaign appears to be treating Mr. Osborn as a nuisance, rather than a serious threat to its bid for a third term.

“Deb Fischer has real, strong and deep support across the state, including 93 bipartisan county chairs and more than 1,000 endorsements,” said Derek Oden, her campaign manager. “She is proud of her long-standing support of Nebraska union members and is willing to work with every Nebraskan to make life easier for working families in our state.” The campaign cited three firefighters unions and the carpenters and electricians who supported her six years ago.

Mr. Osborn's attempt to jump from leader of his local party to member of the U.S. Senate has little precedent and almost resembles the five failed presidential attempts of celebrated labor leader Eugene V. Debs early last century.

Union members in other states have made the jump to elective office, such as Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, and Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago. The New Jersey AFL-CIO has trained 1,300 members to run for office over the past 27 years, with a 76 percent success rate.

Those seeking office will receive instruction in campaigning, researching the opposition, election law, campaign finance, public speaking and dealing with the press, said Charles Wowkanech, the New Jersey president of the AFL-CIO. In a democratic state with many unions, the program identifies and contacts every union member in a given district, and they often account for more than enough votes to win.

That is not the situation in lightly organized Nebraska, where 9.4 percent of employees are represented. But even in New Jersey, where it is 17.3 percent, the highest office sought is the U.S. House of Representatives, where Donald Norcross, a union electrician who went through the program, holds the First Congressional District.

“We modeled the job candidate program after internship programs,” Mr. Wowkanech said. “You don't start as a journeyman and earn the highest rate. You work your way up.”

In 2018, Randy Bryce, known as “Iron Stache,” captured the liberal imagination and big bucks as an ironworker (and secretary of the Racine County Labor Council) running for retiring Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s seat in Wisconsin. He lost by more than 12 percentage points.

“There are certainly ways to reach the other side of the aisle, but it gets harder every year, that civil divide,” Mr. Bryce said. “We need to find reasons to talk to each other again, and working people running for office is a start.”

Mr. Osborn is not exactly gentle and serious Norma Rae, the brash protagonist of the 1979 film that dramatized the plight of workers and the struggle to organize in the South. Kellogg's management fired him a year ago, accusing him of watching Netflix while at work, a charge he and his friends made up. He is now an apprentice to the steam fitters' union, still works on heating and air conditioning systems as he kicks off his campaign. He is also the father of three children between the ages of 16 and 21. His wife is the general manager of a bar and grill in Omaha.

“He's not hitting his first one,” said Danny Begley, an Omaha City Council member and vice president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1483. “He's measured. He is calculated.”

Mr. Osborn, who said he was a Democrat until 2016, wants to run on a narrow platform with what he hopes will be extremely broad appeal: legalize marijuana (at least for medical use), raise the minimum wage nationally, secure abortion rights , protect gun rights and expand laws to facilitate union organizing. He condemns the inflation of the Biden era, but blames corporate greed and price gouging. He speaks in a distinctly Republican manner about the American border.

“Without borders you don't have a country,” he said, although he added that once the border is closed, Congress should explore ways to legalize undocumented workers already in the US.

Early in Israel's war in Gaza, campaign advisers told him he needed to make a statement taking a stand. He declined, saying it was not an issue he wanted associated with his campaign.

“Dan needs to send a message that transcends political boundaries and goes to their pockets,” said Josh Josoff, an ally of the International Union of Elevator Constructors. “Don't let the wedge problems pull you away.”

On the one topic he certainly won't be able to avoid, the presidential campaign, he seemed genuinely confused. Nebraska overwhelmingly supports Donald J. Trump, as does Ms. Fischer. Mr. Osborn is not, a potential November campaign killer. But he doesn't support President Biden either.

“I think they're both too old; I think they're both incompetent,” he said, finally taking a stand. “There's a good chance I won't vote for president.”

“He has a tough economic agenda and he has a really unique profile,” Mr Kerrey said. “You can't say, 'Well, what do you know about what we're going through?' because he does. He knows the rules don't work for working people.”

But Nebraska faces Mr. Osborn. West of Lincoln are some of the nation's largest rail yards, but the freight railroad companies, backed by Nebraska Republicans, have battered the railroad unions, who were the first to ask Mr. Osborn to back a new contract fails to meet their demand for seven paid sick days per year. Such unions may have limited power to supply North Platte and westward.

The state's junior senator and former Republican governor Pete Ricketts is the other obstacle to Osborn's bid. He comes from a family of financiers worth billions of dollars, and he's more than willing to spend it.

Just ask Crista Eggers, who has been trying to legalize medical marijuana since 2019 to treat her son Colton, who suffers daily seizures that his doctors believe can be treated with cannabis. Only three states still ban medical marijuana, although polls show 70 to 80 percent of Nebraskans support it. One of those people who is against is Mr. Ricketts, who stated as governor: “If you legalize marijuana, you're going to kill your children.”

In 2020, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana received 197,000 signatures, in more than enough counties to get a legalization referendum on the ballot. But the Nebraska Supreme Court threw out the case on technical grounds. Supporters tried again in 2022, but had no signatures. Ms. Eggers and her group are now at it again, hoping for some synergy with a ballot measure to protect abortion rights and with Mr. Osborn's campaign, though the group is banned from supporting him.

One problem for Ms. Eggers, and for Mr. Osborn, is money. Signature rides are expensive and 90 of Nebraska's 93 counties are rural, adding to the challenge. Mr. Osborn himself has little statewide name recognition and would need an introduction in the form of television advertising and a robust campaign schedule, both expensive endeavors. Union supporters are optimistic that Mr. Osborn's message will resonate to Ms. Fischer's detriment, if he has the money to get it out.

“We just have to get past the Republican and Democratic stuff, these teams that we're a part of,” said Josh Dredla, a friend of Mr. Osborn who was at the Kellogg's picket lines.

Mr. Osborn said the campaign should raise at least $2 million. So far he has raised just over $200,000.

Ms. Fischer ended 2023 sitting on a war chest of almost $3.3 million.