Well, that was an interesting primary, to say the least; multiple candidates, multiple millions spent,  low voter turnout, and some severe weather all made for interesting results.  We’ll go through this race by race.

Governor

  • Obviously, Mike Braun won this one with just under 40 percent of the vote.  Which is pretty much what the polls predicted.  Our Indy Politics poll had him at 33 percent and 30 percent of the voters was undecided.   If you look at the final breakdown, Braun got 6 points, which was enough to cement his lead.  Suzanne Crouch got 10 points,  Brad Chambers got 7, Eric Doden stayed the same, and Curtis Hill and Jamie Reithour both were under five percent.
  • Most of the undecided voters went to Crouch, but not enough to beat Braun.
  • Another interesting point: Braun won with about 40 percent, but that was 40 percent of what’s looking like 20-25 percent turnout, if that. So, in a nutshell, Braun won with 10 percent of the voting electorate. It’s nowhere near a mandate, but hey, a win is a win.

Congress

CD 6

  • In the race for Congress, money mattered until it didn’t.   The biggest place where it had an impact was, in our not-so-humble opinion, in the 6th Congressional District.   It wasn’t so much that Jefferson Shreve had millions at his disposal, which we knew first hand from last year’s Mayoral primary, but that his opponents didn’t have the funds to fight back.
  • Yes, Jefferson had some conflicting positions between his race for Mayor and Congress, but his opponents, with the exception of Mike Speedy, which we will get to in a minute, didn’t have the finances to go after Shreve on air.  If I may use a World War II analogy, what’s the point in having heavy water if you don’t have the V2 rockets to deliver them?
  • Speaking of Speedy, many folks in Perry and Franklin Townships were not happy with his campaign, and it would really hurt his reputation if he ever decided to get back into politics.

CD 5

Another place where money didn’t matter enough was in CD 5.   Chuck Goodrich spent millions to try to beat Victoria Spartz and he lost every county but Delaware.  According to the last data we saw, he and Spartz were tied in that county.

CD 7

  • This was the big story of the night: the GOP nominated a dead woman to take on Andre Carson.  Jennifer Pace died of a heart attack in March, but it was too late to remove her from the ballot as the deadline had passed and ballots had already been printed.
  • And here’s another sidebar: it took forever to confirm that Pace had died as there was no obituary or death certificate.  Election officials got confirmation of her death through the U.S. Department of Health.  Apparently, when she died, her family had to notify Social Security, which then notified the Health Department, which later sent official word to Marion County election officials.
  • And the only thing worse than coming in second to a dead candidate is coming in 4th place, just ask “Dishonest” Gabe Whitley.   
  • A special caucus will be held to replace Pace in June after the election is certified.