Two polls released in the last days of the Nebraska U.S. Senate race point in different directions. A New York Times/Siena poll shows Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts [Funding: tracked education-related PAC receipts $0.00; labor-related PAC receipts $0.00 (2026 cycle; retrieved 2026-11-01; partial topic registry)] [FEC source] six points ahead of independent Dan Osborn. A poll sponsored by the Nebraska Democratic Party shows Osborn narrowly ahead. Both campaigns spent the final weekend on turnout, and the race now ranks among the most expensive in the state's history. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
Ricketts, a former governor, won a 2024 special election to finish the term of Ben Sasse. Osborn, a former union leader and Navy veteran, is running as an independent for the second straight cycle. The Nebraska Democratic Party has aligned itself with him, Nebraska Public Media reported. In 2024 he challenged Sen. Deb Fischer [Funding: tracked education-related PAC receipts $0.00; labor-related PAC receipts $0.00 (2026 cycle; retrieved 2026-10-31; partial topic registry)] [FEC source]. Our Nebraska Senate race page tracks the contest, and Ricketts' profile [Funding: tracked education-related PAC receipts $0.00; labor-related PAC receipts $0.00 (2026 cycle; retrieved 2026-11-01; partial topic registry)] [FEC source] lists his record and sources.
What the two final polls show
The two surveys overlap in time but differ in method, sponsor and how they treat undecided voters. That makes a direct comparison of the margins unreliable.
New York Times/Siena. The Siena Research Institute posted the toplines on October 31. Among likely voters, Ricketts led Osborn 49% to 43%. In the governor's race, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen [Funding: campaign funding data not verified] led Democrat Lynne Walz 53% to 40%. On a generic ballot for the U.S. House, the Republican candidate led 54% to 35%. The poll of 809 likely voters was in the field from October 23 to 29, according to Polling Forecast's listing and a Prediction.com summary. Prediction.com gave the margin of error as plus or minus 4.2 points and the undecided share as 8%. The Times' own toplines and crosstabs pages did not load for us. For that reason, we could not confirm the exact question wording or the interview method from the original document. The poll was conducted for The New York Times by Siena.
On Point Polling. On Point released its survey on October 30. It was sponsored by the Nebraska Democratic Party, which the pollster says had no role in writing questions or designing the method. It surveyed 1,555 registered voters from October 27 to 29. Of those, 1,128 were reached by text message linked to an online survey, drawn from the L2 voter file, and 427 came through an online panel. All respondents were treated as likely voters and weighted by their chance of voting. The stated margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 points, or 3.7 points once the effect of weighting is included.
With undecided voters allocated to a candidate, On Point found Osborn at 48.7% and Ricketts at 47.2%. Three minor candidates took between 1.0% and 1.6% each. Pillen led Walz 48.8% to 46.0%. The poll found that a third of likely voters had already voted. It found Osborn ahead 64% to 34% among them and Ricketts ahead 55% to 39% among those planning to vote on Election Day. Ricketts' job approval stood at 47% approve and 51% disapprove. President Donald Trump [Funding: campaign funding data not verified]'s approval in the state was 47% approve and 52% disapprove.
Two details matter when reading the On Point numbers. First, the figures assign undecided voters to a candidate based on similar respondents. Siena's figures leave 8% undecided. Second, a poll paid for by a party that backs one candidate is still a poll, but readers should weigh the sponsor. In the same way, they should weigh any internal poll released by a campaign. Our methodology page explains how 567 Politics handles sponsored polls and margins of error.
The two results are not as far apart as the headlines suggest. A margin of error applies to each candidate's share, so the uncertainty on the gap between two candidates is larger. On that basis, neither Siena's six-point lead nor On Point's 1.5-point gap is clearly outside the range of error. Neither poll settles who is ahead.
type: column
title: Two final Nebraska Senate polls of likely voters, Oct. 23 to 29, 2026
note: Percent of likely voters. On Point was sponsored by the Nebraska Democratic Party and assigns undecided voters to a candidate; Siena leaves 8% undecided. Other candidates are not shown. The two polls are not comparable and are not averaged here.
suffix: %
source: [Siena Research Institute](https://sri.siena.edu/2026/10/31/nytimes-siena-poll-of-likely-nebraska-voters/), [On Point Polling](https://onpointpolitics.substack.com/p/new-nebraska-poll-osborn-and-ricketts)
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Poll | Osborn | Ricketts
NYT/Siena (Oct. 23-29) | 43 | 49
On Point (Oct. 27-29) | 48.7 | 47.2
How the campaigns spent the final weekend
Ricketts joined a statewide fly-around with other Republican officeholders. The group included U.S. Reps. Adrian Smith and Mike Flood, Attorney General Mike Hilgers, Treasurer Joey Spellerberg and former state Sen. Julie Slama, Nebraska.tv reported. They stopped at Kearney Regional Airport on Friday, October 30, and planned more stops through Monday. "We have got to win. We win when we show up, when we vote. You can make that happen," Ricketts said. Smith told the crowd that keeping the Senate majority was "at stake." Ricketts thanked Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who visited Nebraska earlier in October. He said their visits helped "with the get out the vote message." [Funding: tracked education-related PAC receipts $0.00; labor-related PAC receipts $0.00 (2026 cycle; retrieved 2026-11-02; partial topic registry)] [FEC source] [Funding: tracked education-related PAC receipts $0.00; labor-related PAC receipts $0.00 (2026 cycle; retrieved 2026-11-01; partial topic registry)] [FEC source] [Funding: campaign funding data not verified] [Funding: tracked education-related PAC receipts $0.00; labor-related PAC receipts $0.00 (2022 cycle; retrieved 2026-11-02; partial topic registry)] [FEC source]
Osborn spent Saturday morning with union members at a training hall in Omaha, WOWT reported. "Workers built this, and it's going to be workers that set this course in the right direction," he said. Nebraska AFL-CIO President Mike Gage said that many working people "need to make their choices in this upcoming election based on economic survival." WOWT reported that Ricketts, Pillen and Republican House candidate Brinker Harding had no public events planned that weekend.
Osborn's campaign used the Republican air tour to draw a contrast. "We just finished a 93-county tour, hitting every county in Nebraska, and will continue doing events through election day," the campaign said, according to Nebraska.tv. "By election night, we will have done 65 events since October 1st." It added, "Ricketts can't be bothered to leave the runway." Osborn planned to be in Kearney on Monday.
Nebraska.tv reported that more than 200,000 Nebraskans had already cast ballots by October 31. On Point reported that 172,692 ballots had been returned by the night of October 27. Of those, 42.8% came from registered Republicans and 40.1% from registered Democrats. Those figures describe who returned ballots, not how they voted. Our national report on early voting in Senate battlegrounds has more on turnout this cycle.
The money
Candidate fundraising in the race has passed $25.6 million, making it one of the most expensive races the state has seen in direct fundraising, the Nebraska Examiner reported. We checked Federal Election Commission summaries for the 2026 cycle on November 1. They cover activity through October 14.
- Osborn's committee reported $11.0 million in receipts, including $10.6 million from individuals, and $2.0 million in cash on hand.
- Ricketts' committee reported $14.5 million in receipts, including $2.9 million from individuals and $7.3 million contributed by Ricketts himself, and $1.2 million in cash on hand.
The Examiner, citing OpenSecrets, reported that about 81% of Osborn's money and about 65% of Ricketts' came from outside Nebraska. It also reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders [Funding: tracked education-related PAC receipts $0.00; labor-related PAC receipts $0.00 (2026 cycle; retrieved 2026-10-30; partial topic registry)] [FEC source] of Vermont disclosed a $25,000 donation to Osborn's campaign, according to Politico.
The 567 Politics funding tool holds an FEC snapshot for Ricketts' principal committee, retrieved November 1. It covers receipts from registered committees, such as PACs, reported on line 11C of the committee's filings. It lists 313 committee contributors totaling about $1.64 million. The largest single committee total is $12,500 from the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation's federal PAC. Several others gave $10,000 each, including the American Bankers Association PAC, the Allied Pilots Association PAC and Abbott Laboratories' employee PAC. This snapshot excludes individual donors and does not net refunds. An employee PAC is not the same as a company's treasury, and a contribution does not show that a donor shaped a vote. Osborn has no profile on 567 Politics yet, so we have no equivalent snapshot for him.
Outside groups have spent far more than the candidates. By October 29, independent spending in the race reached about $65.3 million, Nebraska Public Media reported. That is more than double the outside spending in the 2024 race. The largest single spender is Nebraska Values PAC, a pro-Osborn group that has spent more than $15.5 million. Its ads attack Ricketts over his votes on the state Board of Pardons while he was governor. The Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC for Senate Republicans, has spent nearly $15 million against Osborn and for Ricketts. About $7 million of that went through Cornhusker Majority, a new super PAC funded solely by the Senate Leadership Fund. A cryptocurrency-backed super PAC, Defend American Jobs, has spent $13.5 million against Osborn since October 9. It is largely funded by the PAC Fairshake.
Spending on third-party candidates
The newest development is money spent to promote minor candidates. In the final week, three newly formed super PACs with Republican ties began spending to boost third-party candidates, Nebraska Public Media reported. The outlet described this as "an apparent attempt to draw votes away from Osborn."
- Sandhills Education Fund reported $385,000 in ads opposing Osborn and supporting Robin Richards of the Working People Party.
- Cornhusker Choice spent $77,000 on ads supporting Richards.
- High Time Nebraska spent $115,000 on ads supporting Legal Marijuana Now candidate Mike Marvin. Marvin left the race in August and endorsed Osborn, but his name remains on the ballot.
High Time Nebraska and Cornhusker Choice list the same treasurer as Cornhusker Majority, Trevor Kowalski. The Nebraska Democratic Party called the pro-Richards spending an attempt to "try to trick voters with last-minute dark money." Nebraska Values PAC answered with about $130,000 in mailers opposing Richards. In the On Point poll, Marvin drew 1.4% and Richards 1.0%. In a race this close, a point or two could matter.
The case each side is making
For Ricketts. Ricketts and his allies argue that Osborn's positions are closer to national Democrats' than his independent label suggests. They also say Republicans need the seat to keep control of the Senate. Ricketts has campaigned on agriculture and border security, WOWT reported. Republicans have also focused on leaked audio. In one recording, first reported by the Omaha World-Herald, Osborn described a hypothetical Trump supporter in the town of Red Cloud and said "their lives probably suck so f—— bad," the Examiner reported. Ricketts' campaign put the audio in an ad. At the Kearney stop, Flood said an Osborn win would be "a six year nightmare." He cited the comment, for which Osborn has apologized. In a September release, the Ricketts campaign said other leaked recordings showed Osborn hiding positions on immigration enforcement and transgender athletes, as republished by KCSR radio. Those are the campaign's descriptions. We have not reviewed those recordings.
For Osborn. Osborn and his supporters argue that he would answer to working Nebraskans rather than to either party. They point to the cost of living, his union background and his claim to know what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck, as WOWT reported. They contrast his door-knocking and 93-county tour with Ricketts' airport stops. Pro-Osborn ads attack Ricketts' record on the Board of Pardons. On the audio, Osborn returned to Red Cloud on October 1 and apologized. "I do regret those words. I apologize to the people at Red Cloud," he said, according to the Examiner. Some residents accepted the apology and others did not.
Disputes about outside money. Each side accuses the other of relying on distant donors. Deputy campaign manager Max Oberg said in October that Osborn "looks down on" rural communities "the same way the coastal billionaires writing his checks do." The state Democratic Party, for its part, has attacked the late Republican-linked spending as "dark money." FEC and OpenSecrets data cited above show that both candidates draw most of their money from out of state. Both also benefit from heavy outside spending.
What to watch on Tuesday
The On Point regional results suggest where the race will be decided. Osborn led by wide margins in Omaha and Lincoln. Ricketts led by similar margins in central and western Nebraska. The pollster's numbers put Sarpy County and the Omaha exurbs within about two points. The Siena poll shows a stronger Republican environment overall, including a 13-point Pillen lead. Our Nebraska governor race page tracks that contest.
Three questions remain open. One is whether Republicans who have not yet voted turn out on Election Day; On Point found Ricketts ahead by 12 points among voters who had not yet cast a ballot. Another is whether minor candidates draw more than the low single digits the polls measured. A third is how many voters split their tickets between a Republican governor and an independent for Senate. None of the available polls answers those questions in advance. The result will also affect the national contest for Senate control, alongside close races such as Texas.