The final paragraph that I made into smaller paragraphs.

If [Osborn] knocks off Fischer, that would leave 50 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and three independents. If Trump is in the White House, Vice President JD Vance would break ties, meaning Republicans wouldn’t need Osborn. But if Democrats are in the White House, his vote would give them control of the chamber, and he’d be able to trade it for whatever he wanted for Nebraska.

Osborn’s politics, even as he distances himself from the party itself, align more closely with Democrats, and the survey shows that Democratic voters understand that. Democrats aren’t running a candidate, and Osborn has fully consolidated the Democratic vote (winning 96 percent). But he is also winning 69 percent of independents and, crucially, nearly a fifth of Republicans.

Mail voting is already underway in Nebraska, and if the full election were held today, Osborn would be the slight favorite. Republicans have two weeks, and endless supply of cash, to convince Nebraskans that Osborn is truly “a Democrat in disguise,” or else the race is his.