How does the IN Democratic Party rebuild and retool?

[Suburbia]

Evan Bayh retired from the U.S. Senate in 2010. The former Hoosier governor and senator was the face of the IN Democratic Party until he lost a Senate bid in 2016 to Todd Young.

Joe Donnelly surprisingly won the U.S. Senate race against far right Richard Mourdock. Donnelly was seen as an accidental senator since the late Dick Lugar would have defeated Donnelly in November 2012.

Donnelly lost to Republican Mike Braun in 2018.

Former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has no interest in statewide office, most likely.

How do IN Democrats rebuild?

[brucejoel99]

Pray that A.) Trump is re-elected; & B.) Pete is stupid enough to run against Todd Young in 2022. It's very unlikely, but that's basically it.

Otherwise, they just don't.

[Suburbia]

Pray that A.) Trump is re-elected; & B.) Pete is stupid enough to run against Todd Young in 2022. It's very unlikely, but that's basically it.

Otherwise, they just don't.

Sad.

[brucejoel99]

Pray that A.) Trump is re-elected; & B.) Pete is stupid enough to run against Todd Young in 2022. It's very unlikely, but that's basically it.

Otherwise, they just don't.

Sad.

Yep, but unfortunately true.

[voice_of_resistance]

Yeah they are not going to be as strong as they were in the 1990s for a while. All they can do is contest IN-05, and hold down the fort with NW Indiana. If they wanted to try and get more voters, maybe be more pro-life, but Indiana doesn't have a lot of fiscally liberal-socially conservative voters the way that Ohio and Pennsylvania do.

[PSOL]

There is actually hope here that isn’t in West Virginia. Wait for urbanization, domestic migration into the state, and a growing nonwhite population help propel them forward as the Indiana Republican Party dies by a thousand cuts with every little mistake.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

There is actually hope here that isn’t in West Virginia. Wait for urbanization, domestic migration into the state, and a growing nonwhite population help propel them forward as the Indiana Republican Party dies by a thousand cuts with every little mistake.

Historically the IN GOP got punished when it behaved in overly Southern fashion, scaring off moderate swing voters, who then voted in Democrats. So it would be ironic if this did occur.

[Tekken_Guy]

If Trump is re-elected, Pete does have an outside chance at an upset against Young. I’d be surprised if it actually happens, but he could pull off a good fight.

They should focus on winning over voters in the Indy area. A Pete run could help them down-ballot.

[Pollster]

Indiana is one of American politics' most under-studied states, and the difficulty/high costs associated with polling it only exacerbate that.

It's a red state that happens to have a large Democratic base, but like many states that fit that description, Democrats are concentrated in geographically dense areas that disadvantage them in the state legislature, and the state's politics are heavily racially polarized (especially by the Chicago border).

Their best bet going forward is to target voters in the northern Indianapolis suburbs that swung to Donnelly, and other areas with higher educational attainment to take advantage of national trends.