The downballot primary season comes to Indiana on Tuesday, where Republicans have expensive and nasty nomination contests to sort through for governor and a quartet of U.S. House seats—including one race where a mercurial congresswoman is about to discover whether it’s possible to un-retire a year after calling it quits.
Below you’ll find our guide to the key primaries to watch. When it’s available, we’ll tell you about any reliable polling that exists for each race, but if we don’t mention any numbers, it means no recent surveys have been made public.
To help you follow along, you can find an interactive map from Dave’s Redistricting App of the Hoosier State’s nine congressional districts. You also can find Daily Kos Elections’ calculations of the 2020 presidential results for each district, as well as our geographic descriptions of each seat. And you’ll want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates for primaries in all 50 states.
We’ll begin our liveblog at Daily Kos Elections at 6 PM ET. That’s when polls close in the part of Indiana located in the Eastern time zone, which is home to over 80% of the state’s residents. Polls close an hour later in the remaining portion of the state based in the Central time zone.
• IN-Gov (R) (57-41 Trump): Six Republicans are on the ballot to replace termed-out GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb, but one of them has been the dominant frontrunner throughout the entire primary. Sen. Mike Braun began the contest with a significant advantage in name recognition, and Donald Trump gave him another boost by endorsing him in November.
The senator’s rivals, though, are hoping he’s not as formidable as he appears. A pair of wealthy businessmen, former state Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers and former Indiana Economic Development Corporation president Eric Doden, have poured millions of their own money into ads promoting themselves and attacking Braun. Another Republican, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, is also in the hunt, but she hasn’t had access to the same resources.
However, a pair of polls conducted in late March and early April showed Braun far ahead of the rest of the field with Chambers, Crouch, and Doden all struggling to emerge as his main rival, much less beat him. Two other candidates, disgraced former Attorney General Curtis Hill and conservative activist Jamie Reitenour, are also running, but they’ve struggled to raise money or attract support.
The winner will go up against former Superintendent of Public Institution Jennifer McCormick, a one-time Republican who is uncontested in the Democratic primary.
• IN-03 (R) (64-34 Trump): Rep. Jim Banks has no opposition in the GOP primary to replace Braun in the Senate, but Republicans have an eight-way fight to replace Banks in his Fort Wayne-area district. The main four contenders are former Rep. Marlin Stutzman, who is Banks’ immediate predecessor; former Judge Wendy Davis (no, not that Wendy Davis); wealthy businessman Tim Smith; and state Sen. Andy Zay.
Stutzman, who among other things participated in the push to oust John Boehner as speaker in 2015, was one of leadership’s least-favorite members during his previous stint in office, and GOP honchos weren’t sad when he badly lost a Senate primary the following year to fellow Rep. Todd Young.
His detractors still don’t want him returning to Congress, though. America Leads Action, a super PAC dedicated to defeating hardliners who could make trouble for the current crop of House leaders, has spent $1.8 million to stop his comeback.
Anti-establishment hardliners, though, are working to counteract ALA’s offensive. Stutzman has benefited from close to $800,000 in support from Protect Freedom PAC, a group allied with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, as well as from super PACs affiliated with the House Freedom Caucus, which once counted Stutzman as a member. The like-minded Club for Growth, which was close to Stutzman during his first stint in office, has also deployed more than $750,000 attacking Davis and Smith.
Davis, meanwhile, has benefited from around $1.1 million that Winning for Women, a super PAC dedicated to electing conservative women, has spent on her behalf. Smith, who badly lost the 2019 race for mayor of Fort Wayne, hasn’t gotten any outside help, but he’s used his wealth to outspend all of his rivals’ campaigns.
Zay, finally, has mostly gone ignored, except for some $120,000 that a super PAC called Honest Hoosiers has expended to help him.
• IN-05 (R) (57-41 Trump): Rep. Victoria Spartz announced her retirement from Congress in January of 2023 only to reverse herself 13 months later by launching a bid for a third term. But while she was off in the wilderness, other Republicans charged in to succeed her, and now she faces an expensive primary battle to keep her seat in central Indiana.
Spartz’s main intra-party foe is state Rep. Chuck Goodrich, a wealthy businessman who launched his campaign for what was at the time an open seat and wasn’t deterred by the incumbent’s reversal. Seven other Republicans are also running, though, including former Kevin McCarthy aide Max Engling and businessman Raju Chinthala, so their presence could help Spartz win renomination with a plurality.
Goodrich has pumped $4.6 million of his own money into his campaign, and he’s aired ads hitting the congresswoman for her many about-faces while in office. The state representative has aired commercials charging that Spartz, who is a Ukrainian immigrant, “put Ukraine first”—a message he stuck with even after her vote against the most recent round of aid to the country where she was born. Goodrich has also taken Spartz to task over a 2022 Politico story alleging that she bullied her staff.
Spartz, who relaunched her campaign just three months before the primary, has considerably less money than Goodrich, though she’s self-funded $700,000 to finance her cause. The congresswoman has aired commercials touting herself as a Trump ally while arguing that Goodrich has cast votes that benefited China. A late March Goodrich internal showed him trailing Spartz by a small 33-30 margin, but no one has released any data since then.
• IN-06 (R) (65-33 Trump): Seven Republicans are campaigning to replace retiring GOP Rep. Greg Pence, who is the brother of Mike Pence, in a constituency that includes a portion of Indianapolis as well as part of east-central Indiana.
The best-funded candidate by far is wealthy businessman Jefferson Shreve, who has poured $5.6 million of his own money into his campaign just months after throwing down more than twice that sum on a failed bid for mayor of Indianapolis. Only about 30% of Pence’s constituents live in Indiana’s capital city, though, so most voters didn’t have the chance to cast ballots for—or against—Shreve last November.
State Rep. Mike Speedy, meanwhile, has dumped $1.5 million of his fortune into his own effort, and while that’s not anywhere close to what Shreve’s deployed, Speedy is hoping it’s still enough to get his message out. The lawmaker has aired ads attacking Shreve for campaigning as a moderate in his unsuccessful campaign to unseat Democratic Mayor Joe Hogsett last year.
The contest also features a third self-funder, businessman Jamison Carrier, who has thrown down $750,000 of his money. The GOP field further includes state Sen. Jeff Raatz, who has struggled to keep up with this financial onslaught, as well as three other hopefuls.
• IN-08 (R) (65-33 Trump): Rep. Larry Bucshon is retiring from a once-competitive southwestern Indiana seat that turned dark red during the previous decade. Now eight of his fellow Republicans want to succeed him.
Perhaps the most familiar name belongs to former Rep. John Hostettler, who badly lost his 2006 bid for a seventh term back when this constituency was still nicknamed the “Bloody 8th” due to its propensity to change hands. While Hostettler hasn’t been on the ballot since he took a distant third place in a 2010 Senate primary, his existing name recognition, as well as his son’s position as a local state representative, could help him win despite his meager fundraising.
An array of outside groups, however, want to keep that from happening. America Leads Action remembers how difficult Hostettler was for his party’s leaders during his previous time in office, while both the hawkish pro-Israel group AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition resent both the former congressman’s voting record and his attempt to blame Jews for the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq. Hostettler has continued to employ antisemitic rhetoric during his comeback effort.
This trio of third-party outfits has deployed a total of $4 million to attack Hostettler and promote one of his opponents, state Sen. Mark Messmer, who has also received close to another $1 million in help from another collection of super PACs. Hostettler, however, isn’t being left to fend for himself, as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s Protect Freedom PAC and another organization affiliated with Senate frontrunner Jim Banks have expended around $800,000 to aid him.
The field also includes a pair of self-funders, former Trump staffer Dominick Kavanaugh and physician Richard Moss, who haven’t attracted much attention from outside groups. Moss badly lost primaries to Bucshon in both 2016 and 2018, while yet another candidate, Owen County party chair Kristi Risk, campaigned against the outgoing congressman in previous cycles.