HOWEY: The Indiana governor’s race appears to be a barn burner

INDIANAPOLIS — In this era of gerrymandered congressional and Indiana General Assembly districts that have resulted in supermajority Republican rule, it's easy to forget how competitive our races for governor have been.

Hoosiers have voted four times in open seat races for governor in the past 28 years. After Democratic Lt. Gov. Frank O'Bannon upset Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith in 1996, come-from-behind campaigns by Mitch Daniels in 2004 and Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb in 2016 helped forge a 20-year GOP dynasty.

All were close races and in three of them, the eventual winner came from behind. In that fourth race in 2012, U.S. Rep. Mike Pence barely held on to defeat a surging Democrat John Gregg after comments on rape and abortion in the adjacent U.S. Senate race.

On Nov. 5, Hoosier voters will choose our next governor between Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, Democrat Jennifer McCormick, and Libertarian Donald Rainwater. This open seat race was long thought to be in Braun's bag, but there are tell-tale signs that it has significantly tightened.

Both the Democratic Governors Association and its Republican counterpart have been pumping money into this race. The DGA contributed $450,000 earlier this month, followed by $750,000 from the RGA to Braun by Oct. 10, and another $500,000 to the Republican this past week. The DGA responded with $450,000 last week and is spending $22,000 for a new poll.

While Braun has outraised McCormick $12 million to $2 million for the cycle, he had to spend the lion's share of that money to win the six-way GOP primary in May with 40% of the vote. In TV and digital media purchases, Braun outspent McCormick $985,813 to $747,689 during the third quarter, giving him just a $238,000 advantage there.

Many observers believed Braun would have had a much bigger edge in media spending. One of his ads, accusing McCormick of being a "liberal" who voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in recent cycles, had to be remade twice due to the AI altered placards it showed McCormick supporters holding.

Braun told me on Oct. 10 that the switch at the top of the Democratic ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris replacing President Joe Biden changed the race. “That’s been the biggest structural issue,” Braun said. “It has levitated Democrats into their fuller potential."

Braun called Harris a “chameleon” who will be “easy to flesh out” and suggested McCormick is of the same cloth. “This one looked like it could have been easier until that shifted for them,” he said of the Harris-for-Biden switch.

Then last week, the Indiana GOP put out a mailer attacking Rainwater as a "deadbeat dad" based on a 30-year-old divorce filing. It’s the first time that a Republican nominee has attacked a Libertarian.

Facing a potential surge of female voters, Braun appears to be searching for Libertarian votes. “I find it very hypocritical that the Indiana Republican State Committee would attack me on my personal history when they complain about how their candidates are treated by the media,” Rainwater said, adding that the GOP is running "a failing campaign."

What scenario could produce a McCormick upset?

1. She needs a distinct increase in younger, suburban female voters. Asked last May if her nomination would essentially become a referendum on abortion rights, McCormick told me, “That’s exactly what this race will be. There’s a clear difference.”
2. The Kamala Harris “movement” has ginned up Democratic voter enthusiasm in key battleground states. If that dynamic continues and spreads to Indiana, McCormick will need to tap into that national movement.
3. McCormick needs to attract the “Glenda Ritz coalition” that was used to upset Superintendent Tony Bennett in 2012. Outspent more than 10 to 1, Democrat Ritz used a social media strategy to ignite voters who were teachers (along with their spouses and extended families), teacher retirees, and the extended education establishment. Ritz upset Bennett 52% to 48%, or by about 142,000 votes.
4. There were 128,000 Hoosier Republican primary voters (21.7%) who voted for Nikki Haley over Donald Trump in Indiana’s May presidential primary. If the McCormick campaign can reach out to them and gain their support, that could build upon the “Ritz coalition.”
5. And there is the nomination of self-described "Christian nationalist" Micah Beckwith to the Braun ticket that McCormick will attempt to exploit. Beckwith referred to McCormick as a "Jezebel spirit" and has threatened to fire state employees who use pronouns, something that Braun has rejected.

In a Zoom interview on Oct. 15, McCormick told me, "You look at the holistic picture of things, and I think you pretty much laid it out. I would just add you’ve got the whole Republican dynamic that isn’t thrilled with the option of Mike Braun."

As for Beckwith, McCormick said, "We do hear a lot of Republicans who think he’s dangerous, who think he’s just ridiculous and too extreme. Statements about firing every state employee who uses a pronoun and his comments about white Christian nationalists and Nazis and book banning. The list goes on."

Indiana Republican Chairman Randy Head told the Pike Township Republicans this past week that 20 years of dynastic rule can breed “complacency.”

With a lack of independent polling, we’re reading tea leaves here, watching the national money pour in while the GOP attacks the Libertarian. That suggests we have a barn-burner at hand.

Howey is a senior reporter and columnist for State Affairs/Howey Politics Indiana. Find him on X @hwypol.