Plot exposed: Inside a sneaky scheme to clear the field in key senate race

Two paid staffers of Dan Osborn’s 2024 campaign joined an effort to dissolve a rival political party last year, according to records obtained by the Flatwater Free Press. The records reveal the lengths Osborn’s allies have gone to clear the field for the nonpartisan U.S. Senate candidate as he attempts to unseat Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts.

The two staffers, Christoph Marsh and Will Ramsey, joined Nebraska’s Legal Marijuana NOW Party’s executive board at a virtual party convention in April 2024, when they were among 10 people elected as vice presidents of the state’s smallest political party. That group also included at least two Osborn campaign volunteers and three others with ties to his campaign, its staffers or his political allies, according to documents Flatwater obtained from the Secretary of State’s Office and other public records.

The group gave no indication of their ties to Osborn when they joined the virtual convention. Marsh introduced them as friends who had newly joined the party and offered proof of their voter registrations. “I trust you Christoph,” the party’s chairman, Mark Elworth Jr., wrote later.

The reason for their presence in the party’s upper ranks would later become clear: They could help ensure an Osborn proxy could not be replaced if she won the party’s nomination and then withdrew.

That in turn could help narrow the field for Osborn, first against Sen. Deb Fischer in a close race Osborn lost and now in a matchup against Ricketts that could help determine control of the U.S. Senate. Both races were believed to be close enough that the existence of another non-Republican on the ballot could spoil Osborn’s chances.

The methods Osborn’s supporters pioneered in the Legal Marijuana NOW Party’s 2024 race have played out again this year. Republicans have accused candidates in two primaries of being Osborn plants running the same playbook: Win and then drop out to narrow the field for Osborn.

Their victories have prompted backlash from the Republican secretary of state and drawn a lawsuit from the Democratic primary’s runner-up, who himself has been accused of being a Ricketts plant. They have spurred the creation of two new suspect political parties and yet more lawsuits challenging their legitimacy.

Long before any alleged plant candidates filed to run for office this year, the Osborn supporters and staffers filed paperwork with Secretary of State Bob Evnen’s office seeking to dissolve the Legal Marijuana NOW Party altogether, according to the documents obtained by Flatwater.

Chelsea Richardson, a volunteer for Osborn’s 2024 campaign, sent Evnen’s office a notice in April 2025 claiming that the party had decided to dissolve itself with the support of a majority of the party’s executive board. Richardson provided sworn affidavits supporting the move from nine supposed vice presidents of the party, including herself, the Osborn staffers Marsh and Ramsey and Delanie Ness, a paid employee of Kerry Eddy’s 2024 campaign for the Legal Marijuana NOW Party’s Senate nomination, which she won after campaigning as an Osborn proxy.

Richardson’s husband, Ramsey’s father and Ness’s fiancé also signed sworn affidavits supporting the party’s dissolution.

In the end, the effort failed.

Elworth, then the party’s chairman, told Evnen’s office the party elected new officers two days before Richardson filed her notice, ousting all nine of the vice presidents who sought to dissolve the party. In a June 2025 letter to Richardson, Evnen concluded that the group of nine didn’t appear to have the authority to dissolve the party and rejected their attempt.

Geoff Lorenz, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who studies political parties, called the effort a “wild case” of what American political operatives from both major parties have long sought to do: use election laws to prevent third parties and third-party candidates from succeeding.

“If I was going to do what they were trying to … I would only do it if I really believed that actually, legally speaking, I counted as an officer of this party,” he said.

The attempt to end the political party drew criticism from rival political operatives who cast it as an early effort by Osborn and his allies to meddle in an election that has since been plagued by dueling allegations of deceit.

Elworth, who has since moved to Colorado, called the effort “fraudulent” and said it undermined Nebraska’s democracy.

Max Oberg, the deputy campaign manager for Ricketts, said in a statement that Flatwater’s findings marked “a new low – even for the Osborn campaign.”

“Osborn is so desperate to win he’ll dissolve parties, rig ballots, and plant fake candidates to trick voters,” Oberg said. “The steps Dan Osborn has taken to subvert democracy and undermine our elections should alarm every Nebraskan. The authorities should investigate accordingly.”

Xavier Royer, the spokesman for Osborn’s campaign, said Osborn “had nothing to do with the Legal Marijuana Now Party activities.”

“The reason Dan is an independent candidate is to avoid the gamesmanship that comes with party politics,” Royer said in a statement, noting that Osborn’s campaign and the Legal Marijuana NOW Party share some goals, including the protection of legal medical marijuana in the state and the federal rescheduling of cannabis. “It’s not surprising there might be individuals with connections to both.”

The campaign did not make Ramsey, a paid staffer of Osborn’s 2026 campaign, available for an interview. Flatwater’s efforts to contact Marsh, who did not return to work for Osborn’s campaign staff in 2026 and who lived in Missouri when he signed his affidavit supporting the marijuana party’s dissolution last year, weren’t successful. Richardson declined to comment.

Osborn has long distanced himself from the partisan candidates who have campaigned promising to support him and the Democratic Party altogether. His independence has helped bring him some level of electoral success: Osborn lost to Fischer in 2024 by less than 7% while Ricketts beat his Democratic challenger by more than 25 points.

But in the last two election cycles, outside groups have spent big money backing Osborn while at the same time propping up the candidacies of alleged Osborn plants.

In 2024, when Eddy won the Legal Marijauna NOW Party’s Senate nomination that she pledged to reject in support of Osborn, a Nebraska-based Super PAC called Railroaders for Public Safety spent $34,658 boosting Eddy’s candidacy in a primary race, much more than her opponent spent in total.

The same PAC spent $1.34 million supporting Osborn and opposing Fischer, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

This year, Republicans labeled two primary candidates – Cindy Burbank in the Democratic primary and Mike Marvin in the Legal Marijauana NOW primary – as Osborn plants. Burbank sought the Democratic nomination only after a Trump-supporting pastor, Bill Forbes, filed to run. Nebraska Democratic Party leaders, who opted not to run a Senate candidate and endorsed Osborn, cast Forbes as a Ricketts plant meant to dilute Osborn’s chances.

Burbank joined the race and ran the Eddy playbook, winning her party’s primary but declining its Senate nomination in a move that the secretary of state called “a cynical manipulation of the ballot process.” Her withdrawal prompted a stalled legal challenge from Forbes that is unlikely to change the outcome: a narrowed field for Osborn.

Marvin, meanwhile, won his primary but did not withdraw from the Senate race. If he had, the Legal Marijuana NOW Party could have nominated a replacement candidate – which it sought to do when Eddy withdrew in 2024 in an effort that was voted down in part by Osborn supporters who had joined the party.

Marvin told the Nebraska Examiner earlier this month he never planned to leave the race but also has no plans to hold any campaign events before the general election. His campaign website promises to “work with other candidates in the race to make sure we have a united front against Pete Ricketts in November.”

Both Burbank and Marvin’s primary campaigns were boosted by the same donor: the Common Defense Action Fund, a PAC that spent $73,445 on print and digital ads supporting Marvin, $286,048 supporting Burbank’s campaign and another $63,331 opposing Forbes, her Democratic primary opponent, including on mailers depicting him with Ricketts.

Common Defense Action Fund has in turn drawn much of its funding this year from two sources: Contours Inc., and Common Defense Civic Engagement.

Contours Inc., a Delaware-based nonprofit, has also donated $450,000 to the Working Class Heroes Fund, a PAC Osborn launched following his loss to Fischer in 2024. Common Defense Civic Engagement has also donated $10,000 to that same Osborn PAC.
The PAC money is not the only spending that ties Burbank’s and Marvin’s campaigns together.

When they filed to run for Senate in their respective primaries 15 minutes apart on the March 2 deadline day, Burbank wrote the check that paid for Marvin’s $1,740 filing fee, the Examiner reported in March.

Burbank told that news outlet she paid Marvin’s fee after Evnen’s office refused to accept his own check, which she said was for $10 too much. Marvin said he had never heard of Burbank. His campaign refunded Burbank for the check in May, according to FEC records.

Neither Burbank nor Marvin returned phone calls seeking comment for this story.

More than a month after both won their respective primaries, dueling campaigns launched to gather enough signatures to create two new political parties in Nebraska that could place yet more Senate candidates on the November’s ballot.

First came the Nebraska Working People Party, which Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb has tied to Ricketts and said is meant to “divide the vote and create chaos.”

Then came the America First Party, sponsored by John Cartier, an attorney listed in FEC records as Marvin’s campaign treasurer this year and Eddy’s in 2024. Marvin’s campaign filed an amended statement of organization Monday naming a new treasurer.

Nebraska’s Republican Party called Cartier’s attempt to establish the America First Party a “fraudulent” one designed to “trick conservative voters into splitting their vote,” linking it to Osborn and the Democrats. Cartier did not return a phone call or email seeking comment.

The Nebraska Democratic Party and state GOP each sued to halt the new political party they claim is meant to deceive their own voters. A Lancaster County judge dismissed those suits Thursday, potentially clearing the way for both parties to place candidates on November’s ballot pending appeals.

The plant candidates and legal challenges have been a source of frustration for Kleeb, the chair of the Nebraska Democrats, who said her party remains “the only one that’s been honest throughout this process.”

“We said from the beginning we are making a conscious decision as a party not to field somebody in the U.S. Senate race, because we think Dan Osborn has a great shot of beating Pete Ricketts,” she said. “And then all these other games happened.”

Elworth, the former Legal Marijuana NOW Party chairman, said he expects electoral reforms that could harm parties like his. He said he fears lawmakers, after watching this year’s primary fights and the legal battles that followed, could make it harder for third parties to maintain ballot access in Nebraska.

“I’m going to tell you what’s gonna happen next,” he said. “Now, the Unicameral, after this election – they are going to crack down.”

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.