The Megathread for All Things Hoosier!

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://twitter.com/adamwren/status/1795927278444052671

[gerritcole]

Braun 38.9%
Crouch 21.6%
Chambers 17.5%
Doden 12.5%
Reitenour 5.0%
Hill 4.4%

Braun's 38.9% is about 45k votes more than Jennifer McCormick's 100% in the Democratic primary.

Braun with a pretty weak showing but still a large margin of victory. Crouch carried the Evansville area, while Chambers polled about even with Braun in Marion and Hamilton Counties. Hill coming in last is embarrassing for him, he used to be a rising star. All in all millions of dollars spent for nothing all around.

My thoughts last night:

Low interest election leads to low turnout. The Republican Party was massively splintered for Governor, for Congress…and no one was able to give anyone a reason to catch fire and come out and vote. Braun has been running for Governor for a year and a half and has said pretty much nothing. Trump and name ID carried him (nowhere is name ID more clear than Jefferson Shreve winning the 6th when he was gung-ho pro-gun control running for Mayor of Indianapolis 6 months ago, and he won a safe seat Republican primary because of his name and he’s rich. From watching the ads all these candidates run, they were all the same ad: I’m an outsider (Braun, Crouch, Chambers, and Doden saying they were outsiders is laughable bullsh**t), I’ll secure the border (from what, Kentucky?), I’ll fight Xi Jinping and China (you’re running for Governor, not President). There’s an Adam Wren article in Politico today that is spot-on: the issues harped on were just not at all what’s going on in the state. There’s a massive property tax problem and no one touched it with a ten-foot pole.

Curtis Hill’s political career is done. I’m not sure Brad Chambers’ or Eric Doden’s career should’ve ever started. I don’t know where Crouch goes from here other than private realm. The one place she could maybe go is U.S. Senate because I can’t see Todd Young winning an uncontested primary again in 2028, that’s still 4 years.

For the Senate race, Democrats have their first contested statewide primary in 16 years, and the safe establishment pick got killed 62-38. I’m going to dig into that selection. The safe establishment pick was an old white man running against a black woman. With hardly any Democrat voters in the rural counties, I wonder if Democrats are even capable in a contested primary of producing someone for the whole state versus their urban electorates just controlling everything.

If you want any clearer sign that the Republican Party electorate en masse are splintered (there were something like 50 candidates for 7 Republican Congressional seats), don’t know what they want, and can’t make a decision, the 3rd district gave you that. Stutzman is going to win not getting 25% and 5 candidates got 10%. In the Indianapolis-based 7th, in a 4-way primary Jennifer Pace won for the Republicans. What’s special about that is Pace has been dead since March.

I don’t know if people don’t know how to consolidate now without a leader (read: Trump) telling them how to vote or without the local media covering politics. Newspapers are dead now.

This is a massively disappointing election but I don’t think the Republicans or Democrats have any desire to delve into why. You can’t say people didn’t have choices. The choices just collectively gave nothing.

Great post, woul love to read more of your thoughts on Indiana and other states

[Open Source Intelligence]

Donnelly is resigning as Ambassador to the Vatican (can anyone explain why that is its own diplomatic posting instead of a dual role for the Ambassador to Italy? We have a dual Ambassador for New Zealand and Samoa).

His resignation effective July 8th with the State Convention July 12th has sent rumor mill flying he's replacing McCormick or McCray. McCray is running for Senate antagonistic to the party defeating their preferred candidate handily in the primary in spite of raising hardly any money, and McCormick as a former elected Republican has ran into headwinds as far as Democrats supporting her as well. But probably neither are going anywhere.

https://www.fortwaynepolitics.com/p/despite-rumors-democratic-nominees?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&publication_id=2480609&post_id=145150535&triedRedirect=true

And later on in the article, the latest update on Evan Bayh's son because a guy that is a general in the Heir Force and just graduated from law school is Indiana Democrats' only hope.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Donnelly is resigning as Ambassador to the Vatican (can anyone explain why that is its own diplomatic posting instead of a dual role for the Ambassador to Italy? We have a dual Ambassador for New Zealand and Samoa).

The Vatican City is significantly more important than Samoa. Also, the role is a plum job for Catholic ex-congressmen and political allies.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Donnelly is resigning as Ambassador to the Vatican (can anyone explain why that is its own diplomatic posting instead of a dual role for the Ambassador to Italy? We have a dual Ambassador for New Zealand and Samoa).

The Vatican City is significantly more important than Samoa.

Some people would dispute that. Samoa is important as concerns Pacific naval security and right next to U.S. possession American Samoa (so obviously we don't want them to be friends with China).

What does the Ambassador to the Vatican do all day? What does the office of the Ambassador do all day? There's no visa processing to worry about.

I get it's a plum job and you get to live in Rome, it's questionable whether it should exist as concerns government efficiency.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Donnelly is resigning as Ambassador to the Vatican (can anyone explain why that is its own diplomatic posting instead of a dual role for the Ambassador to Italy? We have a dual Ambassador for New Zealand and Samoa).

The Vatican City is significantly more important than Samoa.

Some people would dispute that. Samoa is important as concerns Pacific naval security and right next to U.S. possession American Samoa (so obviously we don't want them to be friends with China).

What does the Ambassador to the Vatican do all day? What does the office of the Ambassador do all day? There's no visa processing to worry about.

I get it's a plum job and you get to live in Rome, it's questionable whether it should exist as concerns government efficiency.

The cost of paying for one ambassador is a drop in the bucket compared to the benefits of having a direct line and close relations with the Catholic Church. It's co-located on the same site as the Embassy to Italy and presumably shares the same staff. The job of the ambassador is schmoozing with the Holy See to protect America's national interests.
Meanwhile Samoa is entirely irrelevant to naval security as it has no suitable deepwater anchorages for modern warships, not to mention no armed forces and extremely close ties to New Zealand keeping it from flipping to China. There's a reason America holds control of only eastern Samoa - Pago Pago Harbor is one of the largest and deepest natural ports in the world.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Donnelly is resigning as Ambassador to the Vatican (can anyone explain why that is its own diplomatic posting instead of a dual role for the Ambassador to Italy? We have a dual Ambassador for New Zealand and Samoa).

The Vatican City is significantly more important than Samoa.

Some people would dispute that. Samoa is important as concerns Pacific naval security and right next to U.S. possession American Samoa (so obviously we don't want them to be friends with China).

What does the Ambassador to the Vatican do all day? What does the office of the Ambassador do all day? There's no visa processing to worry about.

I get it's a plum job and you get to live in Rome, it's questionable whether it should exist as concerns government efficiency.

The cost of paying for one ambassador is a drop in the bucket compared to the benefits of having a direct line and close relations with the Catholic Church. It's co-located on the same site as the Embassy to Italy and presumably shares the same staff. The job of the ambassador is schmoozing with the Holy See to protect America's national interests.

So have a single U.S. Ambassador to Italy and the Vatican. If his attention is distracted from one any random day have the Charge d'Affaires take care of it. What's wrong with that?

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Donnelly is resigning as Ambassador to the Vatican (can anyone explain why that is its own diplomatic posting instead of a dual role for the Ambassador to Italy? We have a dual Ambassador for New Zealand and Samoa).

The Vatican City is significantly more important than Samoa.

Some people would dispute that. Samoa is important as concerns Pacific naval security and right next to U.S. possession American Samoa (so obviously we don't want them to be friends with China).

What does the Ambassador to the Vatican do all day? What does the office of the Ambassador do all day? There's no visa processing to worry about.

I get it's a plum job and you get to live in Rome, it's questionable whether it should exist as concerns government efficiency.

The cost of paying for one ambassador is a drop in the bucket compared to the benefits of having a direct line and close relations with the Catholic Church. It's co-located on the same site as the Embassy to Italy and presumably shares the same staff. The job of the ambassador is schmoozing with the Holy See to protect America's national interests.

So have a single U.S. Ambassador to Italy and the Vatican. If his attention is distracted from one any random day have the Charge d'Affaires take care of it. What's wrong with that?

You save 200k a year, lose a plum job for your political allies and insult the Vatican by seeing them as not important enough enough to warrant their own ambassador.
The Vatican takes a lot of value from their direct ambassadorial lines to foreign leaders, and apparently vets and rejects some candidates for not upholding catholic values.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Braun following the Biden example and setting his conditions for debate which appear set to exclude Donald Rainwater. The Indiana Debate Commission not mentioned. The 2 debates are scheduled 2 days apart and are in the 1st week of October.

https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/briefs/braun-to-participate-in-two-general-election-debates/

[Open Source Intelligence]

Jamie Reitenour - who made the Governor primary ballot against the odds and further against the odds finished ahead of Curtis Hill to take 5th of 6 in the primary race - has joined an independent effort with former educator Paige Miller of Moms for Liberty running for Governor. Indiana has a sore loser law so Reitenour's place on the ballot will be Lieutenant Governor. They have to get 37k signatures to qualify for the ballot. Reitenour got 29k in the primary.

Ultimately won't matter because Braun is winning as McCormick can't do anything in fundraising or finding an LG she likes. (Some Democrats are clearly turned off by her being a former Republican, but I think right now the people that would donate to her in spite of that are holding back maybe crossing their fingers that she'll resign to allow Joe Donnelly to run. Indiana Democrats' state chair Mike Schmuhl when asked about that said "no".)

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Why did Braun pick McGuire, she seems a rather obscure and green pick

[Open Source Intelligence]

Why did Brain pick McGuire, she seems a rather obscure and green pick

Only Braun knows. She was picked to defeat sitting legislator John Jacob in a primary. Jacob was considered an embarrassment to the party and had been kicked out of caucus, and the state party gave her an extraordinary amount of money to defeat him in the primary.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2024/06/03/the-rise-and-fall-of-jamey-noel-and-the-top-indiana-republicans-he-knew-along-the-way/

Latest scandal du jour. Fall of powerful political fixer in a historically corrupt river city across the border from Louisville, Sheriff, rose to become County Political Chairman and on the State Central Committee for several years. This has gone on a few months but has been light coverage in the state capitol which largely defines politics in the state, I guess due to the fall of journalism and because it did not happen in Central Indiana so the Indianapolis media doesn't care. Holcomb and other top Republicans from this recent era are "we knew nothing about this!" and otherwise refuse to answer questions.

(Braun could have connections to the guy I suppose, but not near what people like Holcomb, Hollingsworth, etc. would have had. For Hollingsworth, Noel would've had to sign for him to allow Hollingsworth to run in the Congressional primary in 2016 as Hollingsworth established residence in his county moving from Tennessee and had no previous Indiana voting record establishing he was a Republican in good standing.)

[Open Source Intelligence]

Ultimately won't matter because Braun is winning as McCormick can't do anything in fundraising or finding an LG she likes. (Some Democrats are clearly turned off by her being a former Republican, but I think right now the people that would donate to her in spite of that are holding back maybe crossing their fingers that she'll resign to allow Joe Donnelly to run. Indiana Democrats' state chair Mike Schmuhl when asked about that said "no".)

So there's a Gabe Whitley from Evansville that is a perennial guy that runs for office for Republicans and is a complete fraudster: fake donors in his FEC filings, frivolous lawsuits against the Indianapolis political journalist that exposed all this yet does not show up for the hearings. His roommate at one time was a Bob Kern that at the moment is the only person that has filed for the Democrats for Lieutenant Governor. They obviously don't want him to be their LG nominee so have extended deadline to file. McCormick yet can't find anyone to run for LG in a circumstance that echoes the Woody Myers 2020 campaign (Convention is in a month) for reasons of:

-everyone knows she'll lose so no one wants to hop on board a sinking ship
-she wants an LG candidate that can help her raise money
-she talks to regular Democrats, they find out she was formerly an elected Republican as recently as 2019 and it turns off people (by end of 2019 she was doing political events for Democrats around the state); yet no one else had any interest in running for Governor for the party

Republican Convention this weekend. Braun's pick Julie McGuire should win over the more insurgent campaign of Micah Beckwith for Lieutenant Governor. Even Beckwith's public backers have now set expectations of if Beckwith gets a third of the vote that should be considered a rebuke of Braun.

[gerritcole]

Dems need to give way to the libertarians as the second party here state wide

[Open Source Intelligence]

Dems need to give way to the libertarians as the second party here state wide

I'd be in favor. All signs are outside a handful of cities the Democratic Party in the state have completely given up. They're happy getting their 2 Congress reps, some mayors, 10 or so State Senators and 25 or so State House Reps.

I'm curious to see what Rainwater's performance will be with no Covid issue. It should go down but in the 32 counties he finished ahead of Myers in 2020, what happens to the vote in those places? Myers was a historically bad performer, and some of his votes went to Holcomb while some of Holcomb's votes went to Rainwater, so in theory that should all reverse, but we're also talking between above 15% of the total electorate there.

[MadmanMotley]

Dems need to give way to the libertarians as the second party here state wide

I'd be in favor. All signs are outside a handful of cities the Democratic Party in the state have completely given up. They're happy getting their 2 Congress reps, some mayors, 10 or so State Senators and 25 or so State House Reps.

I'm curious to see what Rainwater's performance will be with no Covid issue. It should go down but in the 32 counties he finished ahead of Myers in 2020, what happens to the vote in those places? Myers was a historically bad performer, and some of his votes went to Holcomb while some of Holcomb's votes went to Rainwater, so in theory that should all reverse, but we're also talking between above 15% of the total electorate there.

You know it's bad for the dems when the second best organized party in the state is the Libertarian party.

[DaleCooper]

Dems need to give way to the libertarians as the second party here state wide

I'd be in favor. All signs are outside a handful of cities the Democratic Party in the state have completely given up. They're happy getting their 2 Congress reps, some mayors, 10 or so State Senators and 25 or so State House Reps.

I'm curious to see what Rainwater's performance will be with no Covid issue. It should go down but in the 32 counties he finished ahead of Myers in 2020, what happens to the vote in those places? Myers was a historically bad performer, and some of his votes went to Holcomb while some of Holcomb's votes went to Rainwater, so in theory that should all reverse, but we're also talking between above 15% of the total electorate there.

You know it's bad for the dems when the second best organized party in the state is the Libertarian party.

The Democrats have killed their reputation in half the country. Liberals and leftists did this knowingly and they didn't care and now they're suffering the consequences.

[MadmanMotley]

Dems need to give way to the libertarians as the second party here state wide

I'd be in favor. All signs are outside a handful of cities the Democratic Party in the state have completely given up. They're happy getting their 2 Congress reps, some mayors, 10 or so State Senators and 25 or so State House Reps.

I'm curious to see what Rainwater's performance will be with no Covid issue. It should go down but in the 32 counties he finished ahead of Myers in 2020, what happens to the vote in those places? Myers was a historically bad performer, and some of his votes went to Holcomb while some of Holcomb's votes went to Rainwater, so in theory that should all reverse, but we're also talking between above 15% of the total electorate there.

You know it's bad for the dems when the second best organized party in the state is the Libertarian party.

The Democrats have killed their reputation in half the country. Liberals and leftists did this knowingly and they didn't care and now they're suffering the consequences.

Honestly, I think there are many reasons for it.
1. There is little difference between the state parties and the national party
2. Little investment from the national party to state organizations that are in deep-republican states
3. Lack of investment leads to brain drain from state parties
4. Lack of success means less interest and more apathy from state democrats

Of course partisan politics and the nationalization of every political issue has played a big role in the blue-red divide, but the lack of investment creates this self-fulfilling prophecy. Indiana had a Dem senator just 6 years ago, and state-wide officials made decent showings. But the organization seems to have crumbled, and it's going to take a lot of work and investment to bring that back. It's basically a death spiral that feeds into itself. You can't have a proper political organization in a state where no one is willing to invest.

[gerritcole]

Dems need to give way to the libertarians as the second party here state wide

I'd be in favor. All signs are outside a handful of cities the Democratic Party in the state have completely given up. They're happy getting their 2 Congress reps, some mayors, 10 or so State Senators and 25 or so State House Reps.

I'm curious to see what Rainwater's performance will be with no Covid issue. It should go down but in the 32 counties he finished ahead of Myers in 2020, what happens to the vote in those places? Myers was a historically bad performer, and some of his votes went to Holcomb while some of Holcomb's votes went to Rainwater, so in theory that should all reverse, but we're also talking between above 15% of the total electorate there.

You know it's bad for the dems when the second best organized party in the state is the Libertarian party.

The Democrats have killed their reputation in half the country. Liberals and leftists did this knowingly and they didn't care and now they're suffering the consequences.

Honestly, I think there are many reasons for it.
1. There is little difference between the state parties and the national party
2. Little investment from the national party to state organizations that are in deep-republican states
3. Lack of investment leads to brain drain from state parties
4. Lack of success means less interest and more apathy from state democrats

Of course partisan politics and the nationalization of every political issue has played a big role in the blue-red divide, but the lack of investment creates this self-fulfilling prophecy. Indiana had a Dem senator just 6 years ago, and state-wide officials made decent showings. But the organization seems to have crumbled, and it's going to take a lot of work and investment to bring that back. It's basically a death spiral that feeds into itself. You can't have a proper political organization in a state where no one is willing to invest.

You also can’t replicate the Georgia model of massive capital city and suburb growth cause Indiana is dotted with medium and small towns with massive gop margins. Probably need North Korea margins in Indianapolis, good suburban vote share, awesome college turnouts and good union and minority showings in nw Indiana

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/adamwren/status/1802040781932310574?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno4tbL...

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/adamwren/status/1802040781932310574?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno4tbL...

Woof

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/adamwren/status/1802518758352625749?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno4tbL...

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Sleepy primary not so sleepy after all?

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/adamwren/status/1802859915741995198?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno4tbL...