LINCOLN, Neb. — Dan Osborn, the Senate candidate who has branded himself as a “blue collar, union worker,” is drawing a salary from his own campaign, and he says that is precisely the point.

Federal records show Osborn’s campaign has paid him a quarterly salary — Roll Call first reported in 2024 that he was among the first Senate candidates to draw one — while simultaneously being paid a separate salary by his wife, which the campaign restructured after a complaint. The combined arrangement, by the campaign’s own description, is “financially responsible.”

“I’m working,” Osborn said at a town hall in a town whose name he has previously, per a widely circulated recording, described as “Billy Bob in f—— Red Cloud, Nebraska, who lives next to the f—— Trump store.” “I’m getting paid. That’s what working people do. We get paid for our work. That’s the American dream.”

The campaign’s donor base, per disclosures reviewed by the Free Beacon, tells its own story: of roughly 200 donors who each contributed more than $1,000, six live in Nebraska. The rest live in California, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. — a donor map that, the campaign says, shows “national confidence.”

"I'm working. I'm getting paid. That's what working people do."

When voters confronted him outside the state Capitol over the recording, Osborn’s defense was immediate and, by his own account, complete. “Yeah, I cuss. I’m a sailor. What can I say?” he told the voter, who had identified himself as one of the Nebraskans Osborn was referring to. The exchange ended when Osborn indicated the conversation had reached its natural conclusion.

THE OSBORN SALARY: A QUICK LEDGER

  • Salary drawn by candidate: yes (quarterly, per FEC filings)
  • Salary drawn by spouse: yes (per records, since restructured)
  • Nebraskan donors among top 200: 6 (about 4% of the haul)
  • Donor states with the most contributions: California, New York, Massachusetts, D.C.
  • Campaign's stated identity: "blue collar, union worker"
  • Campaign's response to "but you don't live here": "He works hard. He lives hard. He's hard to pin down."

Incumbent Senator Pete Ricketts, who has governed the state for three terms, responded with what his office called “a simple observation”: “I’ve been to Red Cloud. I’ve been to every corner of this state. The people Dan Osborn is mocking are the hardest working people in America. They don’t need a candidate who looks down on them.”

Osborn’s campaign called the observation “unfair, given that Ricketts has never once drawn a salary.” The campaign then offered to provide Ricketts’ salary information, subject to a records request the campaign would file on its own behalf.

At press time, Osborn was at a diner in a town he did not name, eating a meat and potatoes he had paid for with campaign funds he had drawn as a salary. “That’s what a real candidate does,” he said. “You eat where the people eat. I just happen to be getting paid for it.”