by Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, Esq.

A central Indiana Republican lawmaker recently asked me how he lost his House seat to a Democrat. My answer: “Easy. More people voted for the other guy.”

It’s the Occam’s razor of politics: sometimes the simplest explanation is the best one. And after Tuesday, a lot of Republicans in this state are going to be shopping for any explanation but the simple one.

First, the damage report. Democrats flipped at least 15 seats in the Indiana House and broke the supermajority Republicans have held since the 2012 election. Speaker Todd Huston lost his Fishers seat to first-time candidate Lauren Cole. Greg Steuerwald in Avon, Becky Cash in Zionsville, Chris Jeter and Bob Behning here in Marion County, Ed Soliday up in Valparaiso: all sent home. Down in southern Indiana, Chris Garten, Senate Republicans’ pick to succeed Rodric Bray as president pro tem, leads Democrat Nick Marshall by 297 votes in unofficial results, with ballots from two Clark County precincts still under review. For now.

In Congress, J.D. Ford beat Victoria Spartz in a 5th District that Donald Trump carried by nearly 17 points two years ago, the first Indiana congressional seat to flip since 2012. Statewide, Jessica Bailey unseated Comptroller Elise Nieshalla. And Beau Bayh, age 30, the same age his father was when he won the office, is your next secretary of state, the first Democrat to win a statewide executive office in more than a decade.

Now, the excuses. I’ve heard five so far, and none of them survive the razor.

Excuse No. 1: Ballard Was a Spoiler

I heard this one before the last precinct reported. The problem is arithmetic. Greg Ballard finished around 4 percent. Bayh beat Max Engling by eight-plus points. Hand Engling every last Ballard vote, and he still gives the same concession speech at the Intercontinental.

Ballard spent the fall insisting a vote for him wasn’t wasted. Turns out it wasn’t decisive, either. Plenty of Republicans did walk away from Engling. Most of them walked to Bayh, not Ballard.

Excuse No. 2: It Was a National Wave

There’s something to that. Democrats picked up seats all over the country, and even Gov. Mike Braun conceded voters were “cranky, irritable” and Republicans didn’t read the mood. But a wave only takes out what’s standing too close to the shore.

Treasurer Daniel Elliott was on the same ballot, before the same voters, in the same wave, and won another term. The wave was real. It wasn’t destiny. Some candidates moved to higher ground. Others stood on the beach and insisted the tide wasn’t coming in.

Excuse No. 3: The Suburbs Have Changed

When Huston was picked as speaker back in 2019, Democrats were already pointing to their numbers in the suburbs, and he waved it off. Fishers, Zionsville and Avon aren’t the bedroom communities they were 20 years ago, and the folks moving in didn’t sign a party loyalty oath at the closing table.

Even Braun acknowledged that Republicans lost ground in Hamilton County because they hadn’t been listening. That’s not an excuse. That’s a confession. Seven years after Huston shrugged it off, the suburbs sent him a reply.

Excuse No. 4: We Should Have Redrawn the Map

Somewhere, a consultant is already arguing that last year’s mid-cycle redraw would have saved everybody. Funny thing about that. The map Trump wanted, the one the House passed and the Senate killed last December, was drawn to send nine Republicans to Congress. Decision Desk HQ ran Tuesday’s secretary of state results through those proposed districts, and Bayh carried all nine. Nine for nine. Spread your voters thin enough to win every seat in a normal year, and a wave washes through all of them.

Yes, it’s a hypothetical; a statewide race isn’t a congressional race. But it suggests the 21 Republican senators who voted that map down may have spared their party a shutout in the other direction. Their reward? Six of them lost their May primaries. It could have been worse. And nobody was redrawing Indiana House districts anyway. A new map doesn’t save Todd Huston.

Excuse No. 5: Blame the Convention

This one comes from the governor himself. Braun now says Republicans should consider picking statewide nominees in a primary instead of at the convention, because the more you open things up to the people, the better the result.

Seriously?! What difference would it have made? Victoria Spartz was nominated in a primary. So were Todd Huston, Greg Steuerwald, Becky Cash and every other House Republican who got sent home Tuesday. Primary pick or convention pick, they all went under in the same wave, while Daniel Elliott walked out of the same convention as Max Engling and won. Besides, this is the same convention that handed Braun Micah Beckwith as his running mate over his own pick, Julie McGuire, who, by the way, lost her House seat Tuesday.

Closing Argument

So what’s the lesson? Voters aren’t nearly as complicated as the people paid to analyze them. They look at who’s in charge, decide whether they like what they see, and vote accordingly. On Tuesday, enough of them in enough places didn’t like what they saw.

Republicans still run the governor’s office and both chambers of the General Assembly. They have two years to give those voters a reason to come back, and a memo blaming the third-party guy, the national wave, the suburbs, the map or the convention won’t do it. Neither will a new nominating rule. What will do it is the same thing that has always done it: candidates people want to vote for, running on things people care about, in places where they’ve actually shown up and listened.

If Republicans want the long explanation, they can hire a consultant to write one.  Allow me to save them some money: get more votes than the other guy.

Republicans can reach for all the Occam’s shaving cream they want. The razor may sting a little less, but it’s still going to sting.

I’ve always said if you stick around this town long enough, you’ll see everything two or three times. After Tuesday, make that four.

Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is the editor and publisher of IndyPolitics.org and an attorney licensed in Indiana and Illinois. He has also run for office himself, so he knows exactly what it feels like when more people vote for the other guy.

Photo: RCPath