Four candidates speak at North Platte event Monday
TODD VON
https://nptelegraph.com/article_f0111a5e-a869-5e41-b833-c2467ef31c6e.html
Taking part in a Monday 2026 election forum at the North Platte Community Playhouse were (from left) U.S. Senatecandidate Dan Osborn of Omaha; 3rd Congressional District candidates Macey Budke of North Platte and MarkCohen of Lemoyne; and Legislative District 42 candidate Shaylee Scranton of rural Thedford. All but Scranton areseeking to make the Nov. 3 general election ballot via petition drives.TODD VON KAMPEN, THE NORTH PLATTE TELEGRAPH
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U.S. Senate hopeful Dan Osborn Monday criticized Sustainable Beef’s organizationalstructure during a North Platte campaign forum mainly featuring fellow petitioncandidates for Congress.
Osborn, opposing Republican incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts as he did GOP Sen. DebFischer of Valentine in 2024, led off a two-hour session that included 3rdCongressional District candidates Macey Budke of North Platte and Mark Cohen ofLemoyne and Legislative District 42 challenger Shaylee Scranton of rural Thedford.
Each participant had about half an hour to speak and then answer questionssubmitted by the 50 or so audience members in the North Platte CommunityPlayhouse’s Canteen Room.
Walmart ties targeted
While answering a question about high healthcare costs, Osborn included NorthPlatte’s Sustainable Beef in a list of “vertically integrated” industries with largecorporations that try to control all parts of their supply chain.
“How can we ensure that you have access to healthcare that’s not going to make yougo in debt forever?” said the former leader of the union that struck Kellogg’s Omahaplant in 2021.
“I know for a fact that it starts with breaking up corporations and a little thing calledvertical integration, if you’re familiar with that.”
After citing major U.S. health insurer United Healthcare Inc. and “Big Pharma” asexamples, Osborn turned to Sustainable Beef.
“This Sustainable Beef is vertical, integrating the meatpacking industry — their pieceof it — by controlling the trucking, controlling every aspect of the industry,” he said.”That’s too much power. That’s too much control.”
Osborn later told The Telegraph he was referring most directly to Walmart’s minorityownership stake in the beef plant organized by western Nebraska ranchers andopened in May 2025. Plant organizers have said their structure otherwise resemblesfarm cooperatives.
“No, not at all,” Osborn said when asked if he opposes Sustainable Beef. “But I thinkpeople should be aware of the fact that Walmart is a 15% investor in Sustainable Beef.I want to break up the meatpacking industry, not consolidate it.”
That said, “I don’t oppose it, because it’s jobs, it’s money for Nebraskans, it’s taxes.We’ll see as time goes on with Sustainable Beef.”
Plant organizers disclosed their intent to build in North Platte in March 2021. Theyannounced in August 2022 that Walmart had completed their $325 million-plus infinancing by taking an ownership stake as well as the majority of Sustainable Beef’sproduction.
More than 1,000 people work at Sustainable Beef, which is processing about 1,800head of cattle per day. Both figures are roughly one-third of the employment andproduction at the former Tyson Foods beef plant in Lexington, which closed Jan. 16.
Tyson and the rest of the “Big Four” meatpackers — JBS, Cargill and National BeefPacking Co. — are estimated to control 80% to 85% of U.S. beef processing.
Among other subjects, Osborn said Congress ought to curtail the current U.S. militaryoperations against Iran by invoking the 1973 War Powers Act. President DonaldTrump announced the conflict’s initial U.S. attacks Feb. 28.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at a jellyfish, but they don’t have spines,” the U.S.Navy and Nebraska Army National Guard veteran said. Members of Congress “needto get some spines and they need to start exercising the authority as a coequal branchof government the way this was all designed.”
Osborn, who needs at least 4,000 petition signatures to qualify for the Nov. 3 ballot,narrowly lost to Fischer in 2024. He hopes to deny Ricketts, a fellow Omahan andformer two-term governor, a full six-year Senate term after serving the last threeyears of former Sen. Ben Sasse’s term.
His campaign polls show him five percentage points ahead of Ricketts, he said, but heexpects Ricketts will “rely on his money” and that of his family.
“I suspect he’ll probably spend upwards of $50 million because he thinks he can buyyou, and Nebraska is not for sale,” Osborn said.
He told his North Platte audience he won’t caucus with either major party’s Senatedelegation. “I’m going to try to get them to caucus with me” to win his support,Osborn said.
Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb tweeted “We are supporting DanOsborn” last July, soon after Osborn announced he would take on Ricketts this year.
Cindy Burbank of Omaha defeated Democratic opponent William Forbes of Paxton inthe May 12 primary. But she has indicated she may withdraw from the generalelection in Osborn’s favor.
Two take aim at Smith
Cohen, one of the two western Nebraskans trying the petition route against 3rdDistrict GOP Rep. Adrian Smith of Gering, took an identical caucus stance on his ownbehalf.
He has “already said publicly (I’m) not going to caucus with either party,” said Cohen,who lives near Lake McConaughy after a U.S. Air Force legal career that included astint at Bellevue’s Offutt Air Force Base.
He cited high tariffs, rising prices, shrinking rural healthcare, artificial intelligenceand a growing “global surveillance state” among many problems the nation needs tofix.
“But I have to tell you a hard truth: We are not going to fix any of these problems atall until we take our democracy back,” Cohen said.
A “Trump Party” has replaced what nominally remains the Republican Party, he said.“And if we win this supposedly conservative district, that sends a lot of Trump Partymembers back to the center real quick, pretending they never knew who DonaldTrump was.”
Cohen, a former Democrat, said that party is as eager as Republicans to acceptcorporate contributions and shares the blame for Trump’s 2016 and 2024 electoralvictories.
“I don’t believe this district is 80% MAGA,” he said, referring to Trump’s “MakeAmerica Great Again” slogan. “I believe it was 80% who were not convinced that theDemocratic Party could do anything for them. And I believe that I can beat AdrianSmith by building that coalition.”
He urged his listeners to reject the “labels, distractions and platitudes” he expectsfrom 10-term incumbent Smith.
“You get Adrian Smith’s machine tap-dancing around every question by touting hisalleged conservative values,” Cohen said. But “you cannot add $3.3 trillion to yourchildren’s debt and call yourself a conservative.”
Budke, by contrast, didn’t mention Smith’s name as she promised to be a member ofCongress who knows “representation means you remember who sent you there.”
She said she has signed a pledge sought by the U.S. Term Limits group to back aconstitutional amendment limiting House of Representatives members to three two-year terms and senators to two six-year terms.
“We need limits because we need new people, need new ideas and leaders who arestill close enough to daily life to understand what people are dealing with,” saidBudke, practice manager of North Platte’s Psychiatric Hope Clinic.
Rural struggles with healthcare, childcare, agricultural conditions and publiceducation don’t disappear because they’re ignored, she added.
“I’m not interested in making promises I can’t keep, and I’m sure as hell notinterested in using rural Nebraska’s problems as talking points,” Budke told theaudience. “Our problems here are not talking points. They are real life.”
To make the Nov. 3 ballot, Budke and Cohen each need up to 2,000 valid petitionsignatures from registered voters by Aug. 1 under state law.
They hope to join Smith, who defeated GOP opponent David Huebner of North Plattein the May primary; Democratic nominee Becky Kelly Stille of South Sioux City; andformer 3rd District Democratic candidate David Else of rural Overton, the nominee ofthe Legal Marijuana NOW Party.
Scranton: Respect initiatives
Scranto n, who lives on and engages in her family’s ranch south of Thedford, wasMonday’s lone forum candidate already on the general election ballot.
She filed for the Legislature Feb. 27 against District 42 state Sen. Mike Jacobson ofNorth Platte, who won 74% of the May 12 vote. Both automatically advanced to thegeneral election.
When she isn’t ranching, Scranton works remotely in customer service for the My PetChicken company that ships baby chicks to customers. She envisions serving herdistrict in similar fashion, she said Monday.
“We prioritize great communication, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, why the heckcan’t you have better constituent relationships?’” said the 2017 Thedford High Schooland 2020 Doane University graduate.
“I’m not necessarily a master of anything but kind of a jack-of-all-trades,” she added.“I can listen to all this information and aggregate it in a way that just makes sense.And there’s so many problems that end up being connected.”
Scranton said Jacobson enjoys respect in District 42’s four Sandhills counties forhelping to resolve a years-long dispute among Nebraska ranchers, cattle growers andfeedlots with a brand reform bill enacted this spring.
But she criticized Jacobson and other registered Republican lawmakers for wateringdown various laws enacted by voters after initiative petition drives.
Scranton joined Monday’s other forum participants in specifically decrying the failureto effectively implement a medical marijuana initiative approved in 2024.
“It has had so many hurdles, and then you finally get it to where finally pass it (with)71% (of the vote), and then they don’t do anything about it,” she said. “It’s absolutelyridiculous.”
