Top image: Rep. Ro Khanna at a Stanford University student event in February 2026. Photo: Anderseidesvik / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Few Democrats would choose Nebraska for a campaign stop in the last 10 days of a midterm. Rep. Ro Khanna chose it. The Fremont Democrat, who represents much of Silicon Valley and is widely seen as a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, appeared Saturday in Omaha at a “cross-partisan” town hall for Dan Osborn, the independent challenging Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts.
The stage itself was the message. According to the Nebraska Examiner, Khanna was joined at the University of Nebraska Omaha by former Illinois Republican congressman Joe Walsh and Marc Racicot, a former Montana governor and former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Rachael Nelson moderated.
An unusual coalition
Osborn is running as an independent, and the Omaha panel was designed to show voters across the spectrum backing him. Khanna has been part of that effort for weeks. CBS News reported last week that he is the first elected official to campaign with Osborn, and that Nebraska is the most heavily Republican state Khanna has campaigned in.
Khanna told CBS he understood the optics of an outsider like him campaigning in deep-red territory, posing the question himself: “do you really want an Indian American of Hindu faith who’s a proud progressive coming out?” His answer, in effect, has been to show up anyway and talk about issues that cross party lines.
Chief among them is the release of the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein. Khanna co-led the Epstein Files Transparency Act with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a rare bipartisan partnership that has made him a familiar figure to voters well outside the Democratic base. He told CBS that many voters “feel betrayed by Trump” on the issue and described it as the “single biggest issue” he hears about on the road. At the Omaha event, according to the Examiner, the panel discussed a follow-up measure, the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, which Massie has said is two signatures short of what is needed to force a vote.
A defense of dignity
Khanna also used the stage to make a point that many Democrats in competitive races have avoided. On the issue of transgender athletes, he said he was tired of a “Democratic Party that has thrown the trans community under the bus,” the Examiner reported, adding: “We need to stand up for the dignity of every person.”
It was a characteristic Khanna moment, and one that underscores the brand he has been building on a national tour this fall: progressive on principle, but willing to take that message into rooms where it will be tested rather than only where it will be cheered.
The Ricketts campaign responds
The Ricketts campaign seized on Khanna’s appearance. Deputy campaign manager Max Oberg asked whether Osborn agrees “with Ro Khanna that we should shut down Nebraska feedlots,” calling Khanna a “radical Democrat,” according to the Examiner. The campaign said the panel “unmasks Dan Osborn’s fake independent facade.” The Examiner’s account did not include a response from Khanna to the feedlot characterization, and the Chronicle has not located a statement from Khanna using those words.
The race has tightened enough to draw that attention. CBS noted that the University of Virginia’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved Nebraska’s Senate contest from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.
A national itinerary
Nebraska is one stop on a fall schedule that has taken Khanna far from his district. CBS reported he has also campaigned for William Lawrence, the Democrat challenging Rep. Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th District, Josh Turek in Iowa and Chris Pappas in New Hampshire. Last week he led a “Students for Solidarity” tour that drew nearly 200 people at UC Berkeley, with stops in Boston, Orlando and Reno, as the Chronicle reported Sunday.
The Washington Post has described him as a self-described “progressive capitalist” whose pitch, expanding technology and manufacturing jobs into places the tech boom passed by, is aimed squarely at the kinds of voters he met in Omaha.
The long view
Khanna’s Nebraska bet is a wager on a theory of politics that national Democrats have struggled to test: that a candidate from the most prosperous tech district in America can earn a hearing in farm country by showing up, finding common ground on corruption and economic fairness, and refusing to soften his views on dignity and rights. Whether Osborn wins or not, the coalition onstage in Omaha, a progressive Democrat, a former GOP congressman and a former RNC chairman, is the kind of alliance any 2028 hopeful would want to show could exist. For Silicon Valley, it is a reminder that its congressman is increasingly speaking to a national audience.
Sources
- Nebraska Examiner: At cross-partisan town hall, Osborn shares stage with Democrat, ex-Republican and former RNC chair (Oct. 25, 2026)
- CBS News: Ro Khanna campaigns with Dan Osborn in Nebraska (Oct. 20, 2026)
- Washington Post: Ro Khanna, eyeing the White House, tries to sell capitalism to the left (Oct. 23, 2026)
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