by Tom Davies, Indiana Capital Chronicle
June 15, 2026
Indiana Republicans will be doing more this coming weekend than deciding a turbulent race for their secretary of state nomination.
Those state Republican convention delegates will also be signaling their willingness to follow top GOP leaders as the party strives to continue its decade-long control of all Statehouse offices.
About 1,800 delegates can vote during Saturday’s convention in Fort Wayne, where current Secretary of State Diego Morales will be fighting to keep his reelection bid alive.
Knox County Clerk David Shelton and conservative activist Jamie Reitenour have been pursuing challenges to Morales for months. But much of the state’s Republican hierarchy has suddenly coalesced behind Max Engling — a senior adviser and regional director to U.S. Sen. Jim Banks — since he entered the race a few weeks ago.
Whoever wins the nomination will move on to the November election ballot, facing Democrat Beau Bayh, Libertarian Lauri Shillings and possibly former Republican Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard.
How Republicans got to this point
Morales never really stopped campaigning after his successful 2022 election run, which included knocking off then-Secretary of State Holli Sullivan during that year’s Republican convention.
He shook off numerous controversies about office spending and travel as he built connections with GOP activists at local party events and dinners.
Morales talked up living his “American dream” of immigrating as a teenager with his family from Guatemala to southern Indiana, becoming a U.S. citizen and rising to statewide office.
His support among top state Republicans, however, crashed in mid-May when worries about Morales’ vulnerability to a well-financed Bayh campaign prompted many of them to thrust the largely unknown Engling into the forefront of the race.
“I do think, absolutely, that ability to win in the fall is one of the most important pieces here,” Engling told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “So that we can guarantee, or as much as you can, that we can work extremely hard to put our best foot forward and say that we’re going to try to hold this thing in the fall.”
Morales has rejected calls from some Republicans that he drop out of the race.
Morales, who has not replied to numerous phone, text messages and emails from the Capital Chronicle seeking an interview, describes himself as a target of “political retribution.”
“I am the candidate for Secretary of State who has ever won a statewide election, visited every single one of Indiana’s 92 counties multiple times, and has faithfully served the Republican cause and President Trump while delivering numerous wins to safeguard our elections and deliver for the people,” said a recent Morales text message to delegates.
A heat check on Banks’ influence
The move to push forward Banks staffer Engling as an alternative to Morales came just weeks after six Republican state senators who voted against the Trump-demanded congressional redistricting lost to primary challengers.
Political organizations controlled by Banks largely bankrolled the multimillion-dollar advertising blitz against those senators — helping carry out Trump’s goal of political revenge over the redistricting defeat.
Banks won election to the U.S. Senate in 2024 after eight years in the U.S. House. Engling joined his staff in early 2025 after a dozen years in Washington as a Republican congressional staffer and a 2024 GOP primary loss to U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz.
While Banks and several other top Republicans switched their endorsements from Morales to Engling, Gov. Mike Braun has declined to weigh in. That comes after convention delegates defied then-nominee Braun’s pick as a lieutenant governor running mate two years ago in favor of Micah Beckwith.
Shelton has criticized Morales’ integrity in office and presents himself as the best-qualified candidate from his eight years running local elections as the Knox County clerk. He’s secured endorsements from numerous of his fellow county clerks to bolster his campaign.
Shelton knocks Engling as “another amateur wanting a job he has no qualifications for” and said Engling’s candidacy is “a ploy to try to sway and appoint somebody who can be controlled.”
“I think the delegates will see through that,” Shelton told the Capital Chronicle. “It didn’t work out for the governor a couple years ago at the state convention. It’s not going to work out this year as well.”
Reitenour, who made a longshot bid seeking the 2024 Republican nomination for governor, has been appealing to conservative delegates with proposals such as requiring hand-marked paper election ballots that are then counted by hand.
She argues that she is the outsider candidate while the other three all have links to the Republican “establishment.”
“The history of the delegates in the Republican convention is that they have voted against the establishment,” she said in an interview. “I think it’s incredible that the framing of this conversation has been kind of that I’m the underdog. I think that really ignores what’s been happening at these conventions.”
Engling says he raised the possibility of entering the secretary of state’s race with Banks after others asked him to consider doing so. He says only after Banks reached a breaking point with Morales did the senator offer his campaign support — but that he’s not relying on that to win over delegates.
“My job is to earn their trust, and so connecting with as many people as I can to tell my story, what the priorities are, and then also how we’re positioned to win against folks in the fall that are very energized,” Engling said.
Looking ahead to November
In an election cycle without races for president, governor or U.S. senator on Indiana’s November ballot, the secretary of state’s office will have the top spot.
The Republican nominee will face off against Bayh — the Democratic candidate who is a son of former governor and U.S. senator Evan Bayh and grandson of former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh.
Bayh has already raised more than $2.5 million for his campaign, and many Democrats see him as the party’s best chance to break a streak that has seen Republicans go 23-0 in statewide elections since 2014.
The fall campaign could be further scrambled if Ballard, the former Republican Indianapolis mayor, is able to secure by the end of June the roughly 37,000 certified voter signatures required by state law for his name to appear on Indiana’s November ballot.
Ballard to run under ‘Lincoln Party’ name in independent bid for Indiana secretary of state
Ballard is attempting to run under the “Lincoln Party” banner, appealing to independent and disaffected Republicans and Democrats.
Officials from both parties tried to talk Ballard out of running, which is a sign of the impact he can have on the fall campaign, said Kevin Kellems, an informal Ballard adviser whose Republican credentials include serving as a top aide to U.S. Sens. Richard Lugar and Dan Coats and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Kellems says he still considers himself a Republican but worries about the current “top-down toxic partisan culture.”
That’s been seen with the primary campaigns against GOP state senators that were fueled by spending from national groups and with Banks trying to direct the party’s pick for secretary of state, Kellems said.
“What I don’t like was outside money and outside people trying to dictate to Hoosiers how to think and how to vote,” Kellems said in an interview. “I think we’re smart enough and well-reasoned enough to make our own choices. I think this is an outside-in power play, burying people in outside money, and I think that’s not healthy.”
Shelton faults Banks, Attorney General Todd Rokita and other top Republicans for supporting Morales until deciding that controversies surrounding the secretary of state’s office risked a fall election loss.
“As of right now, it’s looking like the Indiana Republican Party is a party of Jim Banks,” Shelton said. “We’ll see if that actually, truly plays out.”
