(Picture credit Matt Johnson)
OMAHA — The U.S. Senate race in Nebraska continues to draw national attention, with political figures from outside the state coming to participate in the campaign. Last week, incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts was joined by Senate Majority Leader John Thune and RNC Chair at separate events. Vice President JD Vance also came to North Platte and took a few shots at challenger Dan Osborn.
In turn, Osborn held a town hall with a few special guests of his own on Saturday evening at UNO’s Milo Bail Student Center. Joining him on stage were progressive Congressman Ro Khanna, former one-term Congressman Joe Walsh, and former Montana Governor and RNC Chair Marc Racicot. Former Nebraska Libertarian Party Chair Rachael Nelson moderated the panel. Walsh referred to the panelists from different parties as a “motley crew.”
Priority One: The Epstein Files
The event opened with a video from Skye and Amanda Roberts, brother and sister-in-law of Virginia Giuffre, an outspoken accuser of Jeffrey Epstein who died by suicide in April 2025. The video showed Osborn meeting with the Roberts family and visiting their traveling “Trump-Epstein Bookmobile” during its stop in Omaha.
It also showed Osborn pledging to make releasing the Epstein files his number one priority at a town hall in Weeping Water.
“From day one, which I will include in my victory speech, it is going to be pushing the Epstein files,” Osborn said. “And I know that doesn’t bring down diesel costs immediately, but I really do think that’s the importance.”
In November 2025, Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the Department of Justice to publish all unclassified materials related to Jeffrey Epstein in a searchable format. Although the DOJ released a partial dataset by the deadline, courts and lawmakers have criticized the department for extensive redactions and for withholding millions of documents.
Khanna, who represents California’s 17th District, which includes Silicon Valley, has since introduced legislation he calls “Epstein 2.0.” Khanna says the bill “would give state attorney generals the right to prosecute these awful men who did this—because Todd Blanche isn’t doing anything.”
Joe Walsh, the Anti-Trump Influencer
Walsh was elected in a wave of Tea Party candidates to Illinois’ 8th District in 2010. He served a single term before being defeated in 2012 by Tammy Duckworth.
Walsh supported Trump enthusiastically in 2016 but in the years since has become a prominent anti-Trump voice online. He is now registered as a Democrat.
“I spend almost all of my day yelling about that idiot in the White House,” Walsh told the room on Saturday. “He’s everything our founders feared, but he’s the product of a broken system, of broken politics. Republican, Democrat, both parties, we need a kick in the ass, and it’s not going to happen unless guys like Dan Osborn go to Washington.”
Osborn, who has been running for U.S. Senate since 2023 against both Deb Fischer and now Pete Ricketts, described himself as a “newcomer” in politics, which Walsh praised.
“Dan, you had me at ‘hello,’” Walsh said. “My God, did you hear what he first said? ‘I’m a newcomer.’ Stop! You’ve got my vote. If I lived in Nebraska, and you knocked on my door and said, ‘Hi, I’m Dan Osborn. I’m a newcomer.’ Done, I’m yours.”
Marc Racicot, Man Without a Party
Marc Racicot is a Montana native. For over 110 years the state has had open primaries and no party affiliation required when registering to vote. Racicot recounted growing up with a father who was a lifelong Democrat and a mother who was a lifelong Republican, though party affiliation seemed irrelevant at the time.
“Frankly, the party label just simply didn’t mean very much all those years ago,” Racicot said. “It simply indicated which party you began discussions with, but nothing more … Hell, I don’t know what I am today, to be really honest with you.”
The influence of money in politics was a key point among the speakers, specifically the 2010 Citizens United decision. Racicot said that Montana may have “invented” a way to address the decision in the form of a ballot initiative.
“It’s a citizens’ initiative, and what it’s gonna do is essentially take away all the corporate charters of all of the different companies doing business in the state of Montana,” Racicot said, “and then we’re gonna reissue those charters and prohibit any spending of corporate dollars on campaigns in Montana.”
Racicot praised Osborn for being, he believed, one of the few candidates to highlight the issue.
“I don’t think I’ve heard another candidate in the United States of America running for the United States Senate who has put that issue within the top 10 issues that they are concerned about,” Racicot said. “So we have to lay the system bare. It’s like a snake, serpentine, slinking around through the bushes and all different kinds of campaigns, and we’ve gotta cut off the head of the snake.”
Transgender Students in Sports
During Q&A, the first question came from a guest wearing a shirt that read “transgender veteran.” The guest asked Osborn to take a stand on the “Fairness for Girls” ballot initiative, which would add sex-specific protections for youth and collegiate sports to the state Constitution.
“There has not been a single trans girl that we know of participating in sports in this state,” the guest stated. “We should at least have enough humanity that we don’t put into our state constitution that trans people are second-class citizens.”
“It’s fear, right?” Osborn responded. “They try to rule by fear. That’s how they divide us. That is, they will use this issue of trans girls in sports that, like you said, affects zero people in Nebraska.”
In 2016, the Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) created a formal review process for transgender students seeking to compete in sports according to their gender identity. In 2025, the NSAA stated that eight students had applied to participate under this policy since 2018 but did not disclose how many had been approved.
Khanna chimed in, urging Democrats to take a clear stand rather than equivocate.
“I’m tired of a Democratic party that has thrown the trans community under the bus,” Khanna said. “Can we say Medicare for All? Can we say trans kids should have dignity and play in sports? Can we say immigrants add value to this country? The American people will respect you if you have strength in your convictions, not if you’re on every side of every issue.”
Khanna: Osborn a Potential Bridge for Gun Control
Another guest asked about gun control.
“I’ve been a teacher in education for over thirty years, and never in my life have I been more scared to be in a classroom,” she said. “When they can shoot through the doors to get into you, what are we doing to protect our kids?”
Osborn said that he loved “shooting guns” to “blow off steam,” but he also said there was an “epidemic” of school shootings and suggested technology could be used to protect school children while a legislative solution is pursued.
“There’s now technology that can identify a firearm on a person inside of a bag, inside of a coat,” Osborn said. “It can lock doors, it can alert authority. You know, investing in these things to keep our kids safe in schools, while we work on this issue in Congress, and finding a way to get the people in the rooms and having the hard conversations.”
Khanna viewed Osborn as the ideal candidate to help build bridges to pass legislation.
“It’s gonna take folks who are like Dan, who understand shooting guns, etc., to go and talk to gun owners, respect them, say, ‘Look, where, where can we compromise? What can we get done? You know, how do we have common sense on this, common sense safety?’” Khanna said.
Young People With Feelings of Dread
One guest expressed anxiety over a long range of issues.
“I’m twenty-two years old. As a young person, I feel dread,” he said. “I feel that there’s so much ahead of us that we have yet to face … Billionaires, Epstein class, data centers, surveillance, Flock, ICE, Israel, fascism. These are issues that are on my mind.”
Another guest, who was 20 years old, expressed similar feelings of despair.
“There is a growing amount of people who are giving up,” he said. “People who are disappointed time after time and are just sort of giving up on even trying in politics and in the country generally.”
Khanna said that the future is going to depend on younger people, particularly those who will help advance a new slate of change-oriented candidates.
“It’s going to be your generation that takes back a vision of boldness and reform that you want to see, and you’re winning across the board,” Khanna said. “They’re winning. Mamdani’s winning. You’ve got people like Talarico winning. Josh Turek is winning. Dan Osborn is winning. And we’ve got people winning.”
Walsh expressed similar optimism for major political change once Trump is out of office.
“Step one is the Democrats have to take back the House and the Senate,” Walsh said. “And then, when the crazy man in the White House—the very, very bad man—gets out, we’re on the cusp of major political reform of this country.”
Race to the Finish
Osborn has a busy schedule as he finishes his 93-county tour across Nebraska. He has around two dozen campaign stops scheduled over the following week before Election Day. His final scheduled stop will be at the Astro Theater on Nov. 2 at 6 PM—the same venue where his campaign kicked off July 30 this year.
Osborn closed his town hall with a music video featuring himself singing a cover of “I’ve Been Everywhere” by Johnny Cash. Osborn pointed out that the song was produced by local musicians and not by generative AI.
“The best thing you could do is not a crappy AI slop jingle on the radio or an attack ad,” Osborn said. “It just turns into white noise, I think, for all of us at some point. I think we’re there. It is really a referral from a friend, a family member, and a neighbor. That is how grassroots campaigns win, and that’s how we’re gonna win in Nebraska.”
— Matt Johnson is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel.