A Meat Plant Closed in Nebraska. Then Politics Became a Focus for These Latinos

[Omaha Steve]

The sudden closure of the Tyson beef processing plant in Lexington, Neb., tore a hole in the small town’s economy.Credit...Rachel Woolf for The New York Times

Politically disconnected young men, especially Latinos, helped fuel President Trump’s victory, but in this economy, they could move to unconventional candidates like Dan Osborn in Nebraska.

FULL story: http://archive.today/hj1JB

By Sabrina Tavernise

Photographs by Rachel Woolf

Reporting from Lexington, Neb.

April 4, 2026

Juan Laguna Jr., the eldest son of two Mexican immigrants in central Nebraska, had never been to a political event until two Sundays ago. That’s when he found himself, at age 20, in a large hall in his small town, listening to an independent named Dan Osborn make a pitch for the Senate.

His family had just experienced a shock: The giant Tyson beef processing plant in the middle of Lexington, Neb., closed suddenly at the end of January, ripping the heart out of the town’s economy and wiping out around 3,200 jobs, including those of his parents — about a third of the population of the town.

Mr. Laguna didn’t vote in 2024, the first year he was eligible. But when Mr. Osborn, a mechanic and former union leader, came to town, he agreed to join his oldest sister, his parents and their next door neighbor, to go listen. He wasn’t sure if it would help, but it couldn’t hurt, and he was desperate.

Lexington is an unlikely place for Mr. Osborn to visit: It’s in a House district that President Trump won by 50 percentage points. The town itself is mostly Hispanic, a demographic shift that started in the early 1990s when workers, largely from Mexico, came to work in the meat plant.

ORIGINAL pay link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/us/politics/trump-economy-heartland-dan-osborn.html

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