Nebraska U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), attacked the SAVE America Act, using similar Jim Crow-era framing as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) who is supporting his independent campaign.
“The SAVE Act — that’s not saving anything,” Osborn said at a town hall in Norfolk on July 11 in a clip provided to Breitbart News. “The SAVE Act, when you really look at it… it’s unconstitutional. Look up the 14th Amendment. Essentially, it’s going to be a poll tax. That’s a direct violation of our Constitution.”
The SAVE America Act would require individuals to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. It would also require photo identification when voting, revise current law that allows people to register without proving citizenship, and require states to compare their voter rolls with federal records to identify noncitizens who may be registered.
Osborn also supports giving Social Security cards to illegal immigrants which would open a path for illegals to vote in U.S. elections.
His comments come four years after Nebraska voters approved a state constitutional amendment requiring photo identification to vote. More than 400,000 Nebraskans supported Initiative 432 in 2022, and the measure passed with approximately 65 percent of the vote. Pete Ricketts, then Nebraska’s governor, led the effort supporting the voter-identification initiative.
Osborn, a former registered Democrat, is running as an independent against Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) after losing his 2024 Senate campaign to Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) by six percentage points. Fischer campaign manager Derek Oden accused Osborn of being “a liberal Democrat in disguise.”
The Plains Sentinel reported that Osborn indicated he would caucus with Democrats if elected. The two sitting independents in the Senate, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME), also caucus with Democrats.
Osborn is endorsed by the Nebraska Democratic Party.
His allies have included Democratic-aligned financial organizations. Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC associated with Schumer and Senate Democrats, directed $3.85 million toward Osborn. He also benefited from over $14 million dollars in spending from George Soros connected groups.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has also donated to Osborn’s campaign. Warren has opposed the SAVE America Act and characterized it as “Jim Crow 2.0,” invoking the same historical period referenced by Osborn’s description of the legislation as a “poll tax.”
Osborn has said that “both parties have sold out to corporate interests and the money interests.”
During a May appearance on NewsNation’s “On Balance,” host Leland Vittert asked Osborn to identify three or four issues on which he disagreed with Democrats. After Osborn cited the border and industrialized hemp, Vittert pressed him to name additional differences.
“I don’t consider myself a political pundit,” Osborn responded. “I haven’t really been a political person, until, I believe it was 2021.”
Osborn later said, “Everybody wants to put me into a box. You’re trying to put me into a box. I’m not in a box.”
Osborn described campaign-finance reform as “the most important issue of our time and every generation alive right now,” calling for “getting the money out of politics… ending Citizens United… [and] getting the dark money out of politics.” He criticized political contributions as large as $330 million and campaigns costing as much as $100 million or $1 billion, arguing that “what you’re left with is somebody beholden to the corporate interests.”
Osborn added, “I don’t take corporate money. I don’t want to be a part of the problem. I want to be a part of the solution.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NSRC) highlighted Osborn’s ties to Democrats after News of the Unites States (NOTUS) reported that he was participating in a group chat with three other Senate candidates running as independents against Republican incumbents in red states. The NRSC responded with an AI-generated parody video depicting Osborn, Brian Bengs of South Dakota, Todd Achilles of Idaho, and Ty Pinkins of Mississippi in a group chat titled, “Totally Not Democrats,” with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) making a cameo. Osborn is a former registered Democrat, while Bengs, Achilles, and Pinkins had previously run for office as Democrats before launching independent campaigns.
President Trump made passage of the SAVE America Act a central election-security demand during his July 16 primetime address from the White House, urging Congress to approve proof-of-citizenship and photo-identification requirements for federal elections. “The only reason you wouldn’t do it is you want to cheat,” Trump said. “This landmark bill requires that all voters must show photo voter ID. How simple is that? Could I have your photo, please? Photo voter ID. All voters must provide proof of citizenship.”
A July 22 McLaughlin & Associates survey of 1,000 general election voters conducted for Tea Party Patriots Action found broad support for the SAVE America Act’s central provisions. Eighty-two percent agreed that only U.S. citizens should vote in federal elections, while more than three-quarters supported requiring proof of citizenship to register, including 94 percent of Republicans, 73 percent of independents, and 68 percent of Democrats.
The poll also found that 55.5 percent wanted the Senate to continue working to pass the legislation before the midterms, and 62 percent said its proof-of-citizenship requirement was reasonable after being told that married women whose names differ from their birth certificates could sign an attestation rather than produce additional paperwork.
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