Dem
47
GOP
53
One feature of modern politics is that many voters agree with most of the Democrats' policies but would never vote for a Democrat. This is because Fox News and the rest of the right-wing mediasphere have convinced them that Democrats are the spawn of the devil, without actually discussing policy issues, like whether turning your $7.25/hr wage into $15/hr would be good for you or whether raising the FICA contribution cap of $184,500 to $300,000 or $500,000 or more would protect Social Security for decades. This fact of life has some consequences this year.
In particular, two people who support most of the Democrats' policies are running for the Senate as independents. They are Dan Osborn in Nebraska and Seth Bodnar in Montana. The two are very different. Osborn is very working class. His father loaded cargo for the Union Pacific Railroad. His mother was a seamstress. After high school, he enlisted in the Navy and after his discharge worked as an industrial mechanic at a Kellogg's plant and as a union leader. He is now running for the Senate in Nebraska as an independent. He wants to raise the minimum wage, facilitate unionization, legalize marijuana, and guarantee the right to an abortion. He also wants to raise the Social Security cap and give people the right to repair objects they own. Of the people who support Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, he says they were sold a bill of goods. There is nothing there that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would disagree with. But running as an independent triggers none of the "instant hate" that many voters would feel if he ran as a Democrat.
Bodnar is different. His parents were both educators. He graduated first in his class at West Point, was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, served in the fabled 101st Airborne (the Screaming Eagles), taught economics as a professor at West Point, retired as a Lt. Colonel, and became president of the University of Montana. Not exactly working class. He is running for the open Montana Senate seat vacated at the last minute by Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT). On the advice of former senator Jon Tester, Bodnar is running as an independent. He wants to get housing prices down, protect the right to an abortion, fight tariffs and trade disruption, create jobs, ban congressional stock trading, overturn Citizens United, fix the immigration system to allow farmers to get the labor they need legally, and promote green energy. If he were running as a Democrat with that program, no one would scratch his or her head and say: "Democrat, my ass."
Now here is the actual news part of this item. Since there actually is a Democratic Party in both Nebraska and Montana, there were Senate primaries in both states. In Nebraska, Cindy Burbank won the Democratic nomination. She has just filed a formal request to drop off the ballot. The request has to be approved by the secretary of state and attorney general. If they approve, the race will be Sen. Pete Ricketts vs. Osborn. This would essentially be a Republican vs. a Democrat but without the toxic label. If they refuse to approve, she will go to court and make the argument that no one should be forced to run for an office (and potentially be elected to it) if they have changed their mind and no longer want the position. If the courts refuse, too, she could conceivably actually campaign and say: "I don't want to be a senator. Please vote for someone else." Odd, but possible. In a two-way contest, the most recent poll has Osborn beating Ricketts 47% to 42%. So if Burbank can get her name off the ballot, Osborn has more than a fighting chance.
In Montana, Air Force Lt. Col. Alani Bankhead (ret.) won the Democratic primary. She hasn't said whether she will drop out to help Bodnar. State law gives her until Aug. 10. In that case, the Montana Democratic Party is supposed to pick a replacement. However, a group of Montana lawyers who have looked at the law claims that the Party can't be forced to name a candidate if it doesn't have one. If a judge then ordered them to nominate someone, suppose they nominated the judge. If he refused, suppose they then nominated someone under 30 who doesn't live in Montana. Or maybe they could find some Democrat who would actively campaign on a platform of banning all abortions nationwide, reducing the minimum wage to $2/hr, eliminating income taxes on income above $1 million/year, repealing all restrictions on gun ownership, and amending the Constitution to allow Donald Trump to have a third, fourth, and fifth term. With enough PR, that candidate probably wouldn't get many Democratic votes but might get some low-information Republicans who weren't in on the joke to vote for him. The media would go hog wild. (V)