By Michelle Goldberg / The New York Times
It’s hard to think of a major piece of legislation more hated by more people than the monstrous bill Republicans passed last week. It is, of course, almost universally reviled by Democrats, but there’s also opposition to it in every part of the Republican coalition. Susan Collins, perhaps the most moderate Republican senator, and Rand Paul, one of the most conservative, both voted against it. Elon Musk called it “insane” and threatened to form a new political party over it. Sen. Lisa Murkowski tried to distance herself from it immediately after casting the craven vote that put it over the top.
In a June Quinnipiac poll, only 29 percent of respondents, including a relatively anemic 67 percent of Republicans, approved of the bill, which makes deep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps while adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. As Republican leaders twisted arms in the House to get it over the finish line, Steve Bannon, a critic of parts of the bill, warned about the implications for the midterms if “feckless” Republicans didn’t find a way to defend it.
Had Dan Osborn won his independent Senate campaign in Nebraska last year, it’s possible the bill never would have passed. Now, as he starts a new independent run for the Senate in 2026, he thinks some Republicans have buyer’s remorse. “They were sold a bill of goods that if you work hard in this country, your government is going to be there, to have a level playing field for you to get ahead,” Osborn, who announced his candidacy on Tuesday, told me. “But now we’re seeing tax cuts for the billionaires at the expense of workers, people that are struggling to get by.”
A big question — and not just in Nebraska — is whether the pain caused by this bill will be enough to shake partisan loyalties. Democrats are favored to win the House next year, but the party faces a brutal Senate map. It’s defending seats in purple states like Georgia and Michigan and can’t flip the chamber without upsets in some states that are bright red.
The bill, however, could make Republicans’ position a little weaker. In May, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa responded to a constituent frightened about the deadly consequences of Medicaid cuts with a sarcastic, “Well, we all are going to die.” Her comments helped push J.D. Scholten, a popular Democratic state representative and professional baseball player, to challenge her. The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, which had rated the seat “safe Republican,” now says it’s “likely Republican.”
And last week, after Donald Trump drove Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., to announce retirement plans over Tillis’ opposition to the tax bill, The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board proclaimed, “Trump Puts the Senate in Play in 2026.”
A competitive race in Nebraska would certainly help. When Osborn ran in 2024, he distanced himself from the Democrats; he said that if he won, he wouldn’t caucus with either party, and he refused to say who he’d supported for president. On economic matters, however, he’s largely in line with the Democrats’ progressive wing.
“I love this country,” he said last week. “I love my state. I love the ideas America is supposed to stand for, and right now, I feel like that is under threat from corporations and billionaires carving it up for themselves.”
While campaigning last year against Deb Fischer, a Republican who has represented Nebraska in the Senate since 2013, Osborn often spoke about his history as a union leader who led a successful strike against the Kellogg plant in Omaha. (It ended after 77 days with the company agreeing to meet most of the union’s demands.) In a state where many voters consider the Democratic Party culturally alien, he tried to neutralize the power of partisanship by running as an independent. But in the end, while Osborn won over some Trump supporters, his class-based appeal fell short. In a state Trump carried by more than 20 points, Osborn lost by a little under 7.
There are some reasons for optimism that he could do better next year, when he’ll be running against Pete Ricketts, Nebraska’s other Republican senator. Trump won’t be on the ballot, and in the past, some Trump voters failed to turn out in midterms. According to an April poll by Osborn’s team, while Trump’s approval rating in Nebraska is 55 percent, Ricketts’ is only 38 percent. Osborn plans to draw a contrast between Ricketts’ silver-spoon background — he’s a son of billionaire Joe Ricketts, founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade — and his own working-class credentials. “It’s going to be the CEO versus the guy from the shop floor,” he said.
But what’s likely to matter more than anything else is the degree to which the Republican bill has started to bite by Election Day. Jeremy Nordquist, president of the Nebraska Hospital Association, told me that because of the new law, six rural Nebraska hospitals could close, and six more are endangered. Just last week, the Community Hospital of McCook announced that it was shuttering its medical center in Curtis, Nebraska, a town of fewer than 1,000 people, because of what it called “the current financial environment, driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid.”
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, pointed out that even if Republican voters lose access to health care, it’s far from a given that they’ll hold their party responsible. “Even if it’s clearly the Republicans who’ve done it, they’ll find a reason to blame the Democrats,” he said.
Osborn is going to try to break through this filter by speaking in person to as many of the state’s voters as possible. In 2024, he held 200 campaign events. This time he’s aiming for 300. “I’ve got to go out and I’ve got to listen to people, because that’s what it’s all about, right?” he said. Though his politics are very different from the New York Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s, their strategies are similar: Go everywhere, make voters feel heard and maintain a relentless focus on the increasingly punishing cost of living.
Sabato is skeptical it will work in Nebraska. “I’ve been around for decades, and I have heard all these stories and proposals and paths to victory, and the vast majority of them never happen,” he said. At the same time, he acknowledged, “I’m surprised every election cycle by a few races. You never know which ones.” Osborn is a long shot, but long-shot campaigns are the only hope we have for making Republicans in Washington answer for what they’ve just done.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times, c.2025.
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