The Megathread for All Things Hoosier!

[JMT]

Greg Pence is retiring from Congress. Perhaps he will be running for Lt Governor? There was speculation last year that he may join a ticket with Suzanne Crouch. Or, maybe he’s just done with politics.

https://twitter.com/repgregpence/status/1744743219521605913?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno...

[Sir Mohamed]

Greg Pence is retiring from Congress. Perhaps he will be running for Lt Governor? There was speculation last year that he may join a ticket with Suzanne Crouch. Or, maybe he’s just done with politics.

https://twitter.com/repgregpence/status/1744743219521605913?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno...

Perhaps he thought Trump would come out against him and endorse a primary challenger for obvious reasons.

[JGibson]

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom launched on Thursday in their quest to put a ballot measure ending Missouri's abortion ban.

KMOV:

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (First Alert 4) - With just over 16 weeks left to collect signatures, a coalition of abortion rights advocacy groups officially launched a campaign Thursday to lift the state’s ban on the procedure.

The group, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, is comprised of the ACLU of Missouri, Abortion Action Missouri, and the region’s two Planned Parenthood chapters.

https://twitter.com/Missourians4CF/status/1747974900596318417

[Oryxslayer]

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom launched on Thursday in their quest to put a ballot measure ending Missouri's abortion ban.

KMOV:

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (First Alert 4) - With just over 16 weeks left to collect signatures, a coalition of abortion rights advocacy groups officially launched a campaign Thursday to lift the state’s ban on the procedure.

The group, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, is comprised of the ACLU of Missouri, Abortion Action Missouri, and the region’s two Planned Parenthood chapters.

https://twitter.com/Missourians4CF/status/1747974900596318417

Hooser's are from Indiana....  O_o

[Open Source Intelligence]

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom launched on Thursday in their quest to put a ballot measure ending Missouri's abortion ban.

Hooser's are from Indiana....  O_o

You would think a person from Illinois would be intelligent enough to know that.

[JGibson]

Sorry for posting a Missouri issue on an Indiana thread. I have now posted the Missouri abortion referendum in the correct thread now.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Seems like everyone in the Republican primary for Governor except for Curtis Hill is having no trouble getting signatures. He's also way behind in money raised. So the 5-way primary could go down to 4, although both Crouch and Doden in theory could drop down to Congress races.

Private polling per Abdul Hakim-Shabazz of Indy Politics has Braun in the mid-30s, Crouch in the mid-teens, and everyone else in single digits. From living here, Chambers has been running ads during NFL games. The Governor's race has not really started though as far as all the candidates being engaged. It's also a very open landscape out there politically for Republicans: there's an open Governor's race with 5 candidates, an open Senate race, there are 4 open Congress seats, all of that then feeds down into state legislature seats, etc.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Filing closed. Shock, Democrats may have their first statewide primary in 16 years. (Still have to submit 500 signatures in each Congressional District. So we'll see how that goes.) Black Indianapolis Democrats have been annoyed at the rest of the party for a couple years now. That's McCray and might be Dixon-Tatum, but they have to get signatures from party members outside of just Indianapolis.

Meanwhile I think every Republican party member in the state has filed to run for office.

Governor:

Democrat: Tamie Dixon-Tatum, Jennifer McCormick
Republican: Mike Braun, Brad Chambers, Suzanne Crouch, Eric Doden, Curtis Hill, Jamie Reitenour

Senator:

Democrat: Marc Carmichael, Valerie McCray
Republican: Jim Banks, John Rust

1st Congress District:

Democrat: Frank Mrvan
Republican: Mark Leyva, Randy Niemeyer, Ben Ruiz

2nd Congress District:

Democrat: Lori Camp
Republican: Rudy Yakym

3rd Congress District:

Democrat: Kiley Adolph, Phil Goss, Tommy Schrader
Republican: Grant Bucher, Wendy Davis, Mike Felker, Jon Kenworthy, Tim Smith, Marlin Stutzman, Eric Whalen, Andy Zay

4th Congress District:

Democrat: Rimpi Girn, Derrick Holder
Republican: Jim Baird, Charles Bookwalter, Trent Lester, Christopher John Lucas, John Piper

5th Congress District:

Democrat: Ryan Pfenninger, Deborah Pickett
Republican: Jonathan Brown, Raju Chinthala, Max Engling, Chuck Goodrich, Mark Hurt, Scott King, Patrick Malayter, Matthew Peiffer, LD Powell, Larry Savage Jr., Victoria Spartz

6th Congress District:

Democrat: Cinde Wirth
Republican: Jamison Carrier, Darin Childress, Bill Frazier, John Jacob, Sid Mahant, Jeff Raatz, Jefferson Shreve, Mike Speedy

7th Congress District:

Democrat: Andre Carson, Curtis Godfrey, Pierre Quincy Pullins
Republican: Philip Davis, Jenn Pace, Cat Ping, Gabe Whitley

8th Congress District:

Democrat: Erik Hurt, Kellie Moore, Peter FH Priest II, Edward Upton Sein, Michael Talarzyk
Republican: Jim Case, Jeremy Heath, John Hostettler, Dominick Jack Kavanaugh, Mark Messmer, Luke Misner, Richard Moss, Kristi Risk, Jon Schrock

9th Congress District:

Democrat: D. Liam Dorris, Tim Peck
Republican: Hugh Doty, Erin Houchin

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/tomdaviesind/status/1762522424476627202?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno...

[MadmanMotley]

One of the few polls here for the Gubernatorial race has Braun up by over 20 points, but undecided leads the field at 43%

https://emersoncollegepolling.com/indiana-2024-poll-sen-braun-leads-gop-primary-for-governor-at-34-43-undecided/

[Open Source Intelligence]

One of the few polls here for the Gubernatorial race has Braun up by over 20 points, but undecided leads the field at 43%

https://emersoncollegepolling.com/indiana-2024-poll-sen-braun-leads-gop-primary-for-governor-at-34-43-undecided/

This poll was done by CBS 4 and Fox 59 out of Indianapolis, who were hosting a TV debate and were using a 5% threshold to make the debate. So Braun is in of course as well as Crouch, Doden, and Chambers who were all single digits. Jamie Reitenour (expected) and Curtis Hill (unexpected) did not make 5%. Listening to one podcast they all called bull because Hill in their words "rolls out of bed with 12% of the party". Doden and Chambers have been running ads at least in my market tied to certain events, Braun as well to some extent although he's been acting as a leader coasting to victory. I've seen nothing for Hill.

There's a thought that after Hill loses the primary for Governor, he may run for Attorney General at the State Convention 2 months later. He's very popular in the grassroots and the State Convention is a grassroots-heavy electorate. On that tack, Micah Beckwith in his campaign for Lieutenant Governor are heavily organizing people to run for Convention Delegate and apparently has 600 people lined up across the state to run for Delegate in the May primary. Props to him, this is very old school political organizing that modern era politicians are either clueless about or don't lift a finger to do. Classic example of "Know the Rules".

[Open Source Intelligence]

So not 3 months into his 4-year term Mayor of Fort Wayne Tom Henry died yesterday. Based on Indiana state law, all the precinct committeemen the Democrats have inside Fort Wayne will pick the replacement mayor in the next month that will be unelected and run the city for the next 3 years, 8 months.

I was kind of annoyed because in 2023 I did not see any reason why Henry ran for reelection  from a "here's my plans for the next 4 years if I win" point of view. He had no announced plans for anything, his wife was battling her own cancer and died 2 months ago, he had a DUI in 2023, and he had years of health problems including emergency heart surgery in late 2016. That he ran for reelection I said prior to the election was a sign he either wanted to die in office or have the managed transition of resign midterm so the next Democratic Mayor of the city does not have to go through an election campaign. He won the general election narrowly, 52-48. And that's what we're going to get, he's deceased and not even Democratic voters in the city get to pick their next leader. (Really it's a complete match the Biden suspicions some people have federally looking forward until 2028, although in theory we elect the Vice President but not really.)

Friend of mine met with his campaign manager the past couple weeks and it appears Henry's cancer diagnosis if Henry knew about it was kept from them as well, at least that's what the campaign manager claims.

[MadmanMotley]

So not 3 months into his 4-year term Mayor of Fort Wayne Tom Henry died yesterday. Based on Indiana state law, all the precinct committeemen the Democrats have inside Fort Wayne will pick the replacement mayor in the next month that will be unelected and run the city for the next 3 years, 8 months.

I was kind of annoyed because in 2023 I did not see any reason why Henry ran for reelection  from a "here's my plans for the next 4 years if I win" point of view. He had no announced plans for anything, his wife was battling her own cancer and died 2 months ago, he had a DUI in 2023, and he had years of health problems including emergency heart surgery in late 2016. That he ran for reelection I said prior to the election was a sign he either wanted to die in office or have the managed transition of resign midterm so the next Democratic Mayor of the city does not have to go through an election campaign. He won the general election narrowly, 52-48. And that's what we're going to get, he's deceased and not even Democratic voters in the city get to pick their next leader. (Really it's a complete match the Biden suspicions some people have federally looking forward until 2028, although in theory we elect the Vice President but not really.)

Friend of mine met with his campaign manager the past couple weeks and it appears Henry's cancer diagnosis if Henry knew about it was kept from them as well, at least that's what the campaign manager claims.

Yeah, his age, his health, his wife's health, his DUI all were big concerns when he ran again. But Democrats don't exactly have a deep bench in Fort Wayne. My guess is he knew that he wouldn't make it through his term but wanted the next Mayor to be a Democrat and have incumbency advantage.

[Open Source Intelligence]

So not 3 months into his 4-year term Mayor of Fort Wayne Tom Henry died yesterday. Based on Indiana state law, all the precinct committeemen the Democrats have inside Fort Wayne will pick the replacement mayor in the next month that will be unelected and run the city for the next 3 years, 8 months.

I was kind of annoyed because in 2023 I did not see any reason why Henry ran for reelection  from a "here's my plans for the next 4 years if I win" point of view. He had no announced plans for anything, his wife was battling her own cancer and died 2 months ago, he had a DUI in 2023, and he had years of health problems including emergency heart surgery in late 2016. That he ran for reelection I said prior to the election was a sign he either wanted to die in office or have the managed transition of resign midterm so the next Democratic Mayor of the city does not have to go through an election campaign. He won the general election narrowly, 52-48. And that's what we're going to get, he's deceased and not even Democratic voters in the city get to pick their next leader. (Really it's a complete match the Biden suspicions some people have federally looking forward until 2028, although in theory we elect the Vice President but not really.)

Friend of mine met with his campaign manager the past couple weeks and it appears Henry's cancer diagnosis if Henry knew about it was kept from them as well, at least that's what the campaign manager claims.

Yeah, his age, his health, his wife's health, his DUI all were big concerns when he ran again. But Democrats don't exactly have a deep bench in Fort Wayne. My guess is he knew that he wouldn't make it through his term but wanted the next Mayor to be a Democrat and have incumbency advantage.

It's a law I think should just go away. You see state legislators die or resign all the time and then their son is picked to replace them. I get not wanting to field the costs of a special election that will have low turnout, but there should be a better way. There was no reason for Henry to run again then to game the system to get his replacement out of a general election campaign, which is kind of undemocratic. And he's not the only person to do it, and Republicans do it too, doesn't make it right for anyone.

In the same vein, Indianapolis-area State Senator Jean Breaux died a couple weeks ago. She had not been in the legislature at all this past session for health reasons, yet she filed for reelection. She had one opponent against her in the primary, a 20-something female that they got her kicked off the ballot on a technicality of you have to vote in 2 Democratic primaries. One, she was in her 20s, so is young and did not have many primaries to vote in. Two, most of her voting age history she was a college student in California, so because she was in California she voted in primaries there. No matter, kicked off ballot. Then it comes out Breaux dies, and it all makes more sense. Breaux will win 100% of the primary vote, she's ineligible of course, a caucus can pick the replacement, and the Indiana Democratic Party continues its tradition of hating open primaries and actually allowing their own voters a choice of candidate.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Contenders for Fort Wayne Mayoralty so far (they have until April 17th to file to run in the caucus):

Phil GiaQuinta, Indiana State House of Representatives Minority Leader
Michelle Chambers, Fort Wayne City Councilwoman
Sharon Tucker, Fort Wayne City Councilwoman
Palermo Galindo, former City and County Council candidate
Jorge Fernandez, former state legislature and mayoral primary candidate

Galindo and Fernandez are no-hopers in this field. Chambers and Tucker are both black, so one will drop out prior to the caucus to have a unified black caucus behind one of them. (In the local heirarchy Chambers ranks higher of the two of them.) GiaQuinta was the first name I thought of after hearing of Henry's passing. Fort Wayne on the Democratic side is a bit interesting. The black community have dominated all the Democrats that get elected because they dominate that part of town, but there's wide swathes of the city where a Democrat can't win or has not won lately where the black community are not present politically, so how are the precinct committeemen from those neighborhoods going to vote? I can see GiaQuinta winning under that context. If the black community wants a black mayor, their best bet to get one is longtime City Councilman Glynn Hines that retired when his term expired end of last year.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Caucus Saturday. 11 people filed. 4 including a local drag queen were removed from the ballot for the state law of not voting in 2 consecutive Democratic primaries. This Substack started by 2022 independent Congressional candidate Nathan Gotsch in the past few weeks after Mayor Henry died got some good info, including the precinct chairs list that the county Democratic Party wanted to keep quiet. The local ABC affiliate published it over the county Democratic Party's objections because this group of 98 people are picking the next mayor.

What precinct chairs say to Gotsch privately about the 5 main candidates: https://www.fortwaynepolitics.com/p/what-precinct-chairs-really-think

Henry's tacit succession plans before he died that never got off the ground: https://www.fortwaynepolitics.com/p/the-last-supper-what-tom-henrys-final

Video of the Town Hall last night: https://www.fortwaynepolitics.com/p/mayoral-candidate-town-hall-full

Normally, I would say this is a GiaQuinta election with Michelle Chambers having an outside chance, but a number of precinct chairs expressed to Gotsch they would not vote for a white man. Breakdown of the main candidates:

GiaQuinta - white male
Chambers, Tucker - black female
Knox - black male
Crandall - white female

You need a majority to win, so you have to consolidate to 50% plus 1. GiaQuinta winning would open up a very safe State House Democrat seat that I think would be very easily replaced by a black politician in the subsequent caucus, so it's not as straight up to think all the blacks will back only blacks, and it wouldn't surprise me one of the 3 black politicians running here end up winning that caucus to go to Indianapolis (my guess is that is Knox's real motivation). Per Gotsch's reporting the ones most "militant" for lack of a better word about it are females. They make up 55% of the caucus electorate, and for other factors I think that's more pro-Chambers than Tucker or Crandall.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Tucker won. First African-American mayor in the city's history. Second woman, albeit the first was Cosette Simon who was mayor for 11 days in 1985 after Win Moses resigned after being convicted of campaign finance shenanigans, then 11 days later won the Democratic Party caucus to fulfill the rest of his term.

I thought Chambers would get the nod as the up-and-coming shining star of the local party for almost the past decade, but I don't know who she made mad. There was word that at the local party dinner after Mayor Henry had announced his late-term cancer, someone approached him to talk succession. (Mayor Henry had apparently told several people over the years that he wanted them to succeed him. Chambers would definitely be a candidate for one of those.) I'm guessing here but the person that approached Henry might have been Chambers which put people off.

1st Round results:

Tucker 38
GiaQuinta 30
Crandall 10
Knox 9
Chambers 3
Fernandez 1
Galindo 0

Fernandez and Galindo eliminated. Knox and Chambers withdrew.

2nd Round Tucker was announced winner. Numerical results not shared.

GiaQuinta's political career is going to pretty much stay at the State House in the minority and never go beyond that electorally due to how moribund Indiana Democrats are. Unless Mayor Tucker is a disaster which I don't expect no one in the local party is going to challenge her in a primary. His biggest political weakness is one he can't control of he's a white man in a party where that is increasingly becoming a reason not to vote for that person. At least in Fort Wayne it increasingly seems the only primaries white candidates win are the ones where Democrats are incapable of winning the general election. No one is going to challenge GiaQuinta until he retires but he'll never be able to move up the ballot.

Chambers I have no idea what she does. 3 votes out of 91 is pretty embarassing (she was 1 of the 3). She was the black female rising star and got surpassed by another black female. Maybe hope GiaQuinta resigns one day and she can take his seat or play the very long game and run for Mayor in an open seat race or against a Republican incumbent (so we're probably talking 2031 at earliest). She like GiaQuinta still has an office, she's on City Council.