Nebraska U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., and registered nonpartisan Dan Osborn. (Juan Salinas II and Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — There are dueling allegations of planted candidates in Nebraska’s U.S. Senate race and plenty of denials.
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Two candidates – one Democrat and one from the Legal Marijuana NOW Party — accuse their primary opponents of being “plants,” the Democrat William Forbes allegedly to help Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts and marijuana candidate Mike Marvin allegedly to help nonpartisan candidate Dan Osborn.
Osborn and Ricketts are in a heated campaign. Ricketts, a former two-term governor, faces a nominal primary involving four lesser-known Republicans, but is expected to win the GOP nomination. Osborn is gathering signatures to get on the November ballot as a nonpartisan. The signatures are due Aug 3.
Osborn and the Legal Marijuana NOW Party have had a colorful history. Some longer-tenured members of the marijuana party argued that the group’s 2024 Senate nominee, Kerry Eddy, and a group of Osborn supporters took over their party to clear the ballot of competing names to give Osborn a better chance in his 2024 Senate run against Republican U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer.
Fischer beat Osborn by about six percentage points, a close race in a state where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats roughly 2-to-1. Legal Marijuana NOW party chair, Mark Elworth Jr., said Marvin is a “Dan Osborn Plant” on the party’s Facebook page — pointing to him being a union leader.
Marvin was executive director of the Nebraska Association of Public Employees from 2013 to 2017. The union endorsed Osborn in 2024.
Marvin joined the Senate race on Monday, the filing deadline for non-incumbents. Earl Starkey announced his bid for the Legal Marijuana Now Party nomination earlier this year.
Two Democrats filed for the Nebraska Senate race on Monday, the last day to file for this cycle’s primary election. One is Cindy Burbank of Omaha, and the other is Forbes of Paxton, a pastor.
The Nebraska Democratic Party said last year it wasn’t actively pursuing a candidate, though a Democrat could still join the race. On Burbank’s website, she said, “Pete Ricketts, who is running for reelection, is putting in a candidate loyal to him in the Democratic primary to split the vote against him, so he wins easily.”
The website, not a Pete Ricketts plant, also showed alleged Facebook photos of Forbes, an anti-abortion Democrat, attending a banquet for Nebraska Right to Life and a photo of Ricketts speaking at the Capitol for the 2025 Nebraska Walk for Life.
On her website, she wrote that if she wins the Democratic nominee she would support Osborn to give him a “fair shot against Ricketts.”
Forbes, who is running as the other Democrat, told the Examiner he’s not about political drama.
“I just believe in doing what makes sense and getting things done for regular, hardworking Nebraskans. Washington feels pretty broken right now, too much arguing, not enough results,” Forbes said.
The Examiner asked Forbes if he wanted to address the allegation from Burbank that he is “loyal” to Ricketts. He sidestepped the question.
The Nebraska Democratic Party released a statement calling Forbes’ campaign “a political maneuver engineered by Pete Ricketts to split the opposition vote and protect his Senate seat.”
Jane Kleeb, chair of the state Democratic Party, said, “The Nebraska Democratic Party made a deliberate, principled decision not to field a candidate in the U.S. Senate race.”
Marvin wrote under the same post from Elworth that he is not a “plant.”
“Mark states that my union activities make me a good friend of Dan Osborn,” Marvin wrote on Facebook. “I have heard him speak a couple of times, but have never met or spoken with him. No one has hired me to do this; that is slanderous.”
Will Coup, a campaign spokesperson for Ricketts, said, “Dan Osborn’s conspiracy theory is completely false. The Ricketts campaign had no role in the Democratic primary.”
“Of all 10 candidates for U.S. Senate, only one has a history of rigging primary elections, Dan Osborn … Once again, Fake Dan Osborn says one thing publicly while doing the exact opposite behind closed doors,” Coup said.
Osborn’s campaign also denies involvement with Marvin. Osborn campaign manager John Dolan said Ricketts is trying to “deflect because he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but the fact is that Pete is trying to undermine this election.”
“Pete Ricketts’ entire political career has been defined by sketchy political maneuvers,” Dolan said.
Nebraska’s primary election is May 12. The general election is Nov. 3.
This story is provided by States Newsroom, a nonprofit state news network and Blox Digital content partner.
