As polling for incumbent Montana Senator Jon Tester (D) looks increasingly grim, it becomes increasingly hard to see how Democrats maintain control of the Senate this election. But because the universe's sadistic screenwriters love a good out-of-nowhere twist, there may be one last shot at reprieve from the most unlikeliest of places: Nebraska.
Something really interesting is happening in Nebraska, where Dan Osborn, who is running as an independent, is leading incumbent Republican Deb Fischer in a couple of new polls. (Fischer is being hurt by among other things her decision to ignore her previous commitment not to run for a third term. Her explanation is that she just hadn’t realized that seniority is a thing in the US Senate.)
Osborn, a former union leader, is pro-choice and anti-billionaire, which are two unacceptable positions in the contemporary GOP caucus, but still the best that can be hoped is that he would be more or less the Nebraska version of Joe Manchin.
He’s promising not to caucus with either party, but that’s not realistic, given that caucusing is how committee assignments are handed out. If the Senate ends up 50 GOP 49 Dem and Osborn, and Harris wins, Osborn will be in a position to essentially hand control of the Senate to the Democrats, which of course will given him enormous negotiating leverage. Assuming Tester loses and the Dems hold all the other genuinely competitive seats, that will in fact be the split, so this is definitely a race to watch closely.
While both campaigns are issuing dueling internal polls showing them ahead, Fischer hasn't led in an independent poll since August; the last independent poll of the race (at the end of September) had Osborn up five.
If Osborn wins, I do think it is most likely he will end up caucusing with Democrats (after extracting some monster concessions) -- partially because it'd be weird to run against a Republican in the general and then caucus as a Republican, partially because that's what all the other recent "Independent" Senators have done. But I do wonder at the possibility that he tries to create some sort of centrist junta to run the show, like we've seen in some state legislatures (Alaska, New York). It'd probably be Murkowski and Collins on the Republican side, Angus King on the Dem/Independent side -- maybe someone like Bob Casey joins them from the Democrats too? Hard to know the exact personnel.
Obviously, from a Democratic vantage point such a setup would be (a) better than GOP control of the Senate and (b) worse than Democratic control of the Senate. But I'm inclined to think that such a setup would be closer to better for Democrats (though I may be unduly influenced by just how catastrophic full GOP control of the Senate would be). It would probably mean that more ambitious Democratic priorities (including things like DC statehood) would be DOA. But I do think it would mean that a President Harris could get (most of) her cabinet and other major appointees through, which is not something we can take for granted under Republican rule. At the very least, it would enable a semi-functioning government, which is a lot more than we can say if Republicans control the Senate and decide to filibuster absolutely everything.
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