The Plot Has Been Lost in Senate Primaries

This is a fascinating story from the The Indianapolis Star. Kayla Dwyer, a phenomenal reporter, did a story about the amount of money involved in these challenges against incumbents. The piece talks a lot about the challengers running against sitting lawmakers on issues like redistricting and running on Donald Trump’s endorsement. It’s a long article over at the IndyStar, but one of the interesting parts is that it did a pretty good job breaking down how much money these challenger groups are spending. So I want to go through the amount of money they’re spending and then talk about what’s actually going on here, because there’s a lot at play. And it’s not actually about better government. If this were really about better government or accomplishing something, the money would be spent very differently.

How Outside Groups Are Spending Millions in Indiana Senate Primaries

According to the IndyStar, Club for Growth has a PAC called Club for Growth Action that announced a $1.5 million spend in six Indiana Senate primaries. So we’ll try to do some public-school math while we go. According to the Star, there’s also $3 million from a group affiliated with Jim Banks called Hoosier Leadership for America. That’s a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dark-money group. So now we’ve got $1.5 million plus $3 million, which is $4.5 million. Then you’ve got the Braun's Political Action Committee pledging $500,000. And on top of that, Turning Point USA has pledged as much as $10 million or more in this race. So we know for a fact that at least $5 million has been spent already. By the time it’s all said and done, it could be $15 or even $20 million spent on challengers running against Republican senators who voted against redistricting. Guys, this is a revenge tour. That’s it. It’s not about more Republicans in Congress. It’s not about better public policy. And it’s not about you at all. For close to ten years now, I’ve tried to make that abundantly clear. This isn’t about you.

Why This Fight Is Really a Revenge Tour Over Redistricting

If this were actually about getting more Republicans in Congress, think about the damage $15 million could do in the First Congressional District. Remember, Indiana has seven Republican districts, two Democrat districts, and really only one that’s consistently in play. That’s the First Congressional District in northwest Indiana, the Region. Frank Mrvan is the Democratic incumbent there. That district tends to lean about five to six points in favor of Mrvan. But that’s certainly doable. That’s winnable if Republicans are governing effectively and actually improving people’s lives. It’s not a Democrat-plus-30 district. It’s Democrat-plus-five or plus-six. With $15 or $20 million from outside groups, that’s easily competitive. And I thought that’s what redistricting was supposed to be about—getting more Republicans in Congress. They have a golden opportunity there. Except for the fact that Republicans in this state and in Washington know they haven’t delivered for the people of Indiana. The Republicans and their affiliated groups—Turning Point USA, Club for Growth, the group affiliated with Banks, Braun, all of them—are essentially acknowledging they can’t win in the First. This is a district they’ve said for years is trending red. They’ve described it as a swing district, as a district that’s gettable. Yet all of this money is going into state Senate races because they’re angry about redistricting. The stated goal of redistricting was to get more Republicans in Congress. The key is not to look at what these people say. Look at what they do. What Republicans and their affiliated groups are telling you through their actions is simple: they can’t win in the First on the merits of their governance. So they needed to rig the district to bail them out and put someone in there who will fail the same way the rest of them have failed. This has always been my argument against redistricting. Why would I want more of the same? We all knew what this was about. It was about getting Jennifer-Ruth Green elected to Congress. Jennifer-Ruth Green, of course, was the failed congressional candidate in the First. After losing, she was essentially anointed as the golden child by the state party. She was then given a cushy job in the Mike Braun administration, a cabinet-level position. But she behaved so poorly that within seven or eight months she resigned. It ultimately resulted in a major fine and an investigation by the state’s inspector general. Then, once Republicans voted down redistricting, what happened? Jennifer-Ruth Green came out and said she wasn’t running for Congress. She admitted she couldn’t win without redistricting. This whole effort had been about electing her. So we saw the type of person Republicans wanted to send to Congress. Someone with zero respect for you, someone who abused her position of authority, someone who had no respect for the office she held or the people who paid her salary. And once she bailed, the Republicans bailed too. All that money suddenly shifted into a revenge tour against the senators who voted against redistricting. Notice something important. The revenge tour didn’t start when Republicans screwed people on property taxes. It didn’t start when they failed to do anything about utility bills. It didn’t start when they enacted the largest tax increase in the history of the state—the gas tax—and then renewed it. It didn’t start when Republicans kept pumping billions of dollars into the totally corrupt and unethical Indiana Economic Development Corporation. The revenge tour started when they realized they couldn’t win the First and got angry that Senate Republicans wouldn’t rig the political system to protect bad governance. This isn’t about you. Why wasn’t Jim Banks and his dark-money group spending this money the first time the gas tax was raised? Or when it was renewed? Or last year when a thousand people showed up at the Statehouse and tens of thousands of emails and phone calls went out begging for help with property taxes? We could have done a lot of damage with $3 million then. But Jim Banks wasn’t angry about that. The dark-money group wasn’t spending money to help you then. They don’t care who these candidates are or how they’ll govern. Trump couldn’t even get the candidate’s office right in one of his endorsements. The woman he endorsed, Brenda Wilson in Vigo County, they don’t know and they don’t care. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of it. And by the way, Trump endorsed Liz Brown in Fort Wayne. She has been one of the biggest obstacles to issues that are central to Trump’s core base. She was a major roadblock to constitutional carry for years, and she’s been a major obstacle to meaningful immigration policy changes in Indiana regarding how law enforcement deals with illegal immigrants. Trump endorsed her. So this isn’t about policy. It isn’t about you. It isn’t about making your life better.

What This Says About Republican Strategy and the First District

If they truly believed the First District was winnable—as they’ve claimed for years—why isn’t the $15 million going there? The answer is simple. Republicans have failed. They haven’t delivered in Indiana, and they haven’t delivered in Washington. They haven’t delivered on their core promise of lowering taxes. Nationally, they haven’t delivered on affordability or getting inflation under control. They just do the same thing Democrats do. I was thinking about that the other day when I went to see my accountant and sign the forms to pay my obligations to Uncle Sam. I’m sure many of you are doing that right now. Every year, because I have a bit of OCD, I go through everything carefully. My accountant is a great guy, very respected, someone I’ve used for many years. But I don’t just take his word for it. I sit down and ask questions. Why am I getting so screwed by my government? So we walked through what I owed and why. Some years you get money back, some years you owe. This year we got into a conversation about the so-called “big beautiful bill.” I asked him to give me the accountant’s perspective. Forget the politics. Forget Trump. Just tell me what the bill actually does. And he said that unless you’re someone who lives off tips, there’s a good chance that bill didn’t do anything for you. He walked through several provisions, including things that were discussed but ultimately removed—things that would have helped regular people, the majority of Americans. Instead, those items were left on the cutting-room floor. He said the bill was targeted for votes. Looking at my own numbers, they looked very similar to most years. For most people with the same kind of job and tax bracket, the totals probably look pretty similar. So I asked him: wasn’t this bill supposed to help people? He said no. Unless you’re part of a very specific group, it didn’t do anything. I have a term for that. I call it legalized vote buying. And it was refreshing to hear a professional who’s been doing this work for decades say the same thing I’ve been saying. Republicans didn’t help you. They helped a very select group of people. They had every opportunity in that bill to do things that would help regular Americans, and they chose not to.