Indiana GOP Primary Strategy Criticized as Candidates Focus on Redistricting Over Local Issues

So we've tried to say this for several months now. And these candidates, they will not listen. And Election Day is what is it? Is it two weeks away? What is it? Today's the 20th. Yeah, yeah. Basically two I think tomorrow. Is that right. Two weeks. Two weeks from tomorrow. Yeah. May the 5th. And so we'll find out soon whether I'm right, whether I'm wrong. We'll find out here soon enough.

Why Local Issues Decide Indiana State Senate Elections

But local elections are about local stuff. And I consider a state Senate race to be a local election. Now it covers multiple counties in many cases, most cases. But I consider that the issues, the things that matter, are generally communities that are connected. Populations that are connected. And they tend to care about a lot of the same things now. You know, an issue in Greenwood might be different than an issue in Columbus or an issue in Brownsburg might be different than an issue in Avon. But in general, it's like minded stuff, like minded interest. And that is why I've said for the past several months, look, I want incumbent senators, for the most part, to lose most of these 40 in the Republic. Is it 40 or 41? Now, whatever the number is in the Republican supermajority have done a horrible job. They've done an absolutely horrendous job governing our state. Our taxes have never been higher. The return on investment has never been lower. The special interest dollars that have been doled out of our money, money given to select groups at the expense of all of us has never been greater. I mean, just look at the Indian Economic Development Corporation. The amount of money that gets taken from us and given to the richest, most powerful people in our country, in the world, the importing of foreign workers for many of these jobs, the condition of our roads or Medicaid system, it's all the public education, it's God awful. Like we do this. Well, thank goodness we're not Illinois. Well, are we that much worse? That is a pretty crappy way to judge yourself. Well, at least we're not Illinois. We're better than those bastards next door. Like, come on. But that's our standard. When you hit these politicians with what a bad job they're doing, their response to you is, well, what about Michigan? There is no defense for what they're doing. So with that in mind, I'm not a fan of any of these people who are up for reelection. I'm not cheerleading for any of these people to win. But I also have been around long enough to recognize that you're not going to beat them unless you run on issues that resonate to people in the community that you want to serve. Thank you. Jason reminded me it is 420 day, which in the state of Illinois, you can partake in certain substances you can't here, true story. I've never, ever smoked marijuana ever. I've never done a drug, an illegal drug of any sort. I'm crazy enough as is now. Have I drank excessively many times. But as long as you don't get behind the wheel of a large automobile, you're fine or harass anybody else, you're fine. But the point is these elections, state Senate elections, state House elections are almost always won around local issues that are impacting local communities. And there are so many issues coming out of the state House that are impacting local communities. And I have been just so upset that these challengers to these incumbent senators have essentially blown the opportunity to, one, motivate voters to be excited about their campaign, and two, missed an opportunity to enter the state House with a collective mandate because they have not spent their time with a unified voice talking about pooling resources, having a collective conversation, one about the key issues property taxes, utility bills, tolling our roads as a collective public education, the Medicaid system, all of these things. You know, my theory on elections, they're all door hanger elections. On local races, you pick four things. You put them great big on a door hanger. You ride or die with those four things, you're going to live or die with those four things. Pick good issues, you're probably going to win. Get the word out about those four issues, how you plan to do it. And think about you have seven eight people across our state in a unified voice, having a door hanger election on the four big things property taxes, utility bills, whatever you want to make the other two.

How Redistricting Became the Central Focus of GOP Primary Campaigns

And these people haven't done any of that because they have ceded their entire campaign to the Trump Administration and Turning Point USA. And the money that comes with them. Don't give a crap about our property taxes. They don't give a crap about our utility bills. They don't care about the excessive tolling, which are tax increases which are coming towards us. The only thing they care about is making Trump happy. And what's Trump upset about? Trump's upset about redistricting. Because that affects Trump. And so I've begged, I've pleaded with these people. I've said, you have to stop being beholden to people who don't live in our state. Look, Turning Point USA proved they couldn't turn people out during the redistricting debate. They had multiple rallies and hardly anyone showed up. Certainly there were no new people. There was the hardcore, the die hards, the hardcore, 30 people or whatever. And then you put them with the turning point USA people and the political people and then you got maybe a hundred people, but there was nothing like what we did with the property tax rally where a thousand people or people showing up saying I've never been to a rally before. There was none of that. And so I have been very critical of the way these people have run, because I believe most of them are going to lose. Because they have not given the public a viable alternative. The public is not mad about redistricting. The public at large, they are not. Poll after poll after poll showed they weren't. When Greg Good, the senator in Terre Haute, had his public town hall where anybody could show up to speak, not one person showed up to speak in support of redistricting. Not 170 plus showed up in opposition when the public speaking was available at the state House for the bill. It was easily 2 to 1 against. I know I was there. I waited for several hours to speak. The polling, including those done by Republican polling firms, showed people were against redistricting. So it is a fool's errand, a cardinal sin, a political death sentence to make your entire campaign about this one issue. I was having a conversation with a member of the media last night who's been covering one of these Senate races, and I said, why did these people do this? And he said, because it was part of the deal. It was part of the deal. In order to get the turning point people, in order to get the Trump administration, in order to get Scott Presler, who we'll talk about in a second, spoken or unspoken, it was made clear you have to talk about redistricting. You have to talk about how Trump got screwed. You have to make this the central part of your campaign. And these people, instead of thinking it through logically, which is how do we win a local race, we win a local race on local issues, they got starry eyed by the idea of the White House or getting invited to the White House or a photo op with Trump, and they ceded this ground, which is going to make it almost impossible for them to win. I've asked this question over and over again, and no one will give me an answer. So you're running on redistricting. You knock at the door. Mr. Smith, you need to vote for me. Why? Because we got screwed on redistricting. But I either was against redistricting or didn't care about redistricting. Yeah, but you got screwed. Oh, okay. Thanks. Like what? That doesn't motivate people to vote for you. Either people were apathetic to an issue, or they were against the issue. And every single poll that came out, public poll that was released said that exact same thing, including the Republican polls done by Republican firms. And yet the campaigns collectively have been about that.

Scott Presler’s Role Raises Questions About Outside Influence in Indiana Races

And so that brings me to Scott Presler coming to Indiana over the weekend. If you don't know who Scott Presler is, you're in the vast majority of Americans. Most people have no idea who this guy is. These challengers treated it as though Taylor Swift was coming to their community. And what did I say for weeks? I said this, you're making a huge mistake centralizing your campaign, letting all the oxygen of your campaign be centered around a guy who most people don't know who he is. For those of you who don't know, I know most of you watching me are the most informed. You probably know who this guy is, but Scott Presler in 2024 dedicated essentially a year of his life to registering people to vote for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. And there's no doubt Scott Presler played a big role in Donald Trump winning in Pennsylvania. He absolutely did. But that's because he was in Pennsylvania for pretty much a year. He was organized. He did much of his own organization. And he built relationships over a period of time and a somewhat Pennsylvania specific quasi celebrity type of status. In Indiana, that means nothing. Scott Presler went to New Jersey last year. He went to Virginia last year. How did those elections turn out? Those governor's races went for the Democrat. Why? Because he didn't build the relationships. He didn't have a year. He didn't put the effort in. He essentially said, as many people often do, I'm not blaming the guy, he just said, I'm a celebrity now because of Scott Presler's world. He is a celebrity on Twitter, in conservative Twitter, in Trump Twitter. He is a celebrity. That means nothing to the average American. It means nothing. The stat is like one out of every five people is on Twitter, and the one out of every five people on Twitter, you're talking a fraction of the people on Twitter who actually are in that orbit. If he goes to CPAC, he's probably a big deal. But that's not how you win a state Senate race in Indiana. Certainly not seven of them or eight of them. And I said, you Senate candidates are making an egregious mistake, thinking that this guy is going to ride in like some knight in shining armor on a white horse and deliver the election. Most people don't care about this guy. It's not his fault. It is his fault because he thinks people care about him. But people are not going to show up because Scott Presler is there. And people are like, oh, you don't get it, Rob. Oh, you don't understand, Rob. Oh, you're just angry, Rob. I don't get this. I'm angry because you guys are going to lose. I'm angry because you won't listen because you're listening to outside people who don't know our state. I would love for pretty much all of these incumbents to lose. They aren't going to lose. Some of them might just because if you run enough challengers, you're naturally through war of attrition on some people, like a Michelle Davis in Johnson County, Bartholomew County. She's a state rep. She's a known quantity. She might win. Another one of these people may win, but you're not going to win in any sort of number necessary to walk in with a mandate. And even if you did win all the races, you don't have a mandate because you guys didn't run on anything. Redistricting is not going to happen. It's over. It's done with. Even people who are for it have moved on from it. It's over. Indiana made its choice. Let's fix the things that matter. So Scott Presler comes and he does these stops across the state. He was in Terre Haute, he was in Lafayette, he was in Johnson County. Every one of these stops, there's more people at your family reunion or your family barbecue than to see this guy. They, for some reason, posted a photo showing the crowd or lack thereof in Terre Haute. It was a disaster. It was like 20 people maybe, and a bunch of people recognizing the photo were turning point people or people with the campaign for Brenda Wilson, who he was there to support. There might have been ten legitimate people there. Johnson County. Adam Wren from Politico posted a photo. 50 people max. Hammer and I did 250 people in a paid event. Like you had to pay to see us. We got 250. In Johnson County, same county. So we can do an apples to apples comparison. More people paid to see Jason Hammer and myself than went for free to see this guy who's supposedly the greatest thing since sliced bread. Again, I'm not blaming the guy other than he builds himself up as some sort of difference maker. And the reality is, you're one out of two, buddy. Well, you're one out of three. You did it in Pennsylvania, which is great. You failed miserably in Virginia and in New Jersey, and now you're about to fail in Indiana. That dude is not Indiana. He knows nothing about our state. He knows nothing about these candidates other than what he's been told. He thinks, he's convinced himself, or it's just a grift, I don't know, that redistricting is some huge issue here. It's not. He's here to curry favor with the Trump administration. That's what he's doing. That's what he does. He uses people. He goes to places and he does things to make Trump happy. And he convinces you that a bunch of people feel the same way Trump does about something they don't. There have been numerous articles now written interviewing people in these various Senate districts. They don't care about redistricting. The Star did a huge exposé on that, that Sullivan, Vigo and Clay County Senate District. They interviewed a bunch of people on the ground. They're like, we don't care. We voted for Trump, but we don't care. We're not going to vote based on who Trump tells us to vote for. We don't care. And yet the Senate candidates, these challengers can't get it through their thick skulls that you win or you lose local races on local issues. You have to convince people.