Barack Obama famously observed that elections have consequences, and increasingly those consequences can be, well, quite consequential.

Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and on this, our final show of the 2026 season, we'll look ahead to Indiana's May primary and to November's general election.

Our state's just concluded legislative session set the stage for some high profile statehouse races.

And on top of that, here and across the country, this year's congressional contests are shaping up to be a high stakes referendum on Donald Trump's return to the Oval Office, not to mention a fierce battle for the nation's future.

It's Indiana lawmakers from the state House and maybe even the white House to your House.

Indiana Lawmakers is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations, with additional support provided by ParrRichey.

And joining me to talk about this year's elections are Laura Merrifield Wilson, professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis.

And, I should note, the researcher behind Indiana lawmakers ever popular issue explainer segments.

And Martin Sweet, a professor of political science at Purdue University.

Thanks to both of you.

I've been looking forward to this conversation.

It's going to go in lots of directions, so we'll try to put a little form to it since this show has lawmakers in it.

Let's start with legislative races.

We'll start broadly and narrow down.

If that sounds fair.

Last week, New Hampshire I know we all have our finger on the New Hampshire pulse.

There was a special election.

Democrats flipped a state House seat in that state.

Democratic National Committee says that's the 28th flip of where Democrats have picked up a state legislative seat nationwide since Trump's return to the to the Oval Office.

And they say that's a trend that's worth following.

Do you buy?

I mean, when you're looking at legislative races where you're talking about the local high school coach or the local insurance agent or the teacher that you've known your life does, is there is Trump having an effect on those races nationally?

Well, I would say we used to always say all politics is local, and I feel like we're going to keep watering that down till that sting is just meaningless.

But I would say much of politics is still local.

So when you're talking about the local football coach or insurance agent, right?

There is an element, especially with state legislative races in New Hampshire where they have a large state legislature.

So you're talking about really small districts, a very few people in the constituency that will be actually voting, especially in a primary election.

Right.

There's some element that has no no nationalization to it.

But there is also the element of fact that politics is becoming more nationalized, the media is becoming more nationalized, are talking points are conversations.

Even if state legislators don't have anything to deal with Iran and with, you know, foreign affairs people conflate some of those issues.

And so there is that Partizan element to it that I think is important here.

I'm sure Democrats are excited about the opportunity.

And so they see this as a great moment to capitalize on every race is a bellwether on this is how they're portraying it.

And to your point about there being more national influence, as I look at the session that we just concluded, immigration crackdown, which was done at the behest, the encouragement, strong armed encouragement of the administration, we had, the attempted redistricting.

We've had, issues dealing with government or, guard call up from the National Guard and policing power.

A lot of these issues that that, some would say are national in scope or in sweet are, you agree with your colleagues assessment that we shouldn't read too much into, if in fact, the numbers 28 I'm going on the DNC numbers on that, legislative races.

Is there some, if not a wave, a ripple that's building somewhere off of on the horizon?

Well, I do think that, I agree in that, it's certainly a pattern we're seeing and certainly the legislative, mayor of Boca Raton, Florida, not necessarily a one off.

Right?

Miami-Dade also has a new mayor as well.

Also Democratic.

And so we've seen that trend now.

But that's pretty normal, though, in terms of it's a reaction against the party in power.

And so, I wouldn't sort of say, oh, where this is going to be.

This is 1994.

We're going to see some sort of massive wave.

This looks sort of hand in glove with what we expect structurally.

That's the sort of thing when the party when the president's party is in power, it's much easier to, motivate opponents than it is to get the president's own partizans out to the polls so that we see.

And then the nationalization, I think, is really sort of the case.

I think that that that old adage of all popsicles is local.

I really it needs to go away.

We really have seen the nationalization of many, many issues.

All across the board.

So, I fully expect that we will see and flip them type races.

You'd expect sort of, the benefit the doubt to go to Democrats kind of thing.

But I don't think this means, hey, all Republican incumbents are suddenly going to lose, that we're going to start seeing, flips that Indiana is going to become statewide.

Democrats are gonna start winning all the time.

I don't see that I'm old enough to remember when, when Democrats controlled the House and came close in the Senate.

But, it's been a while.

It's been a while.

So we talk about the national influence in.

Let's Go.

We've I promised we'd start broadly and go down to more narrow to Indiana.

Donald Trump wants to make sure he has an influence in some of the races that are coming up here with the primaries.

You know, there were 21, Republicans voted against his redistricting plan, enough to torpedo the plan after it had passed the House.

Five of them, now have opponents in the upcoming primary that, already are the subject of beneficial spots, funded not directly by Donald Trump, but one is, an organization affiliated with Senator Jim Banks.

So Hoosiers leadership for America, other groups have promised to spend up to seven digits, on media buys for these five, challengers against Republican incumbents, in the Senate, where the redistricting plan was defeated.

Is, is it going to make a difference, do you think, it's going to be really hard to say.

I think what I think is interesting, when you look at the Trump endorsement in this case, you're talking about state legislative races.

And for the state Senate, these are 1/50 of the state of Indiana.

Now, in previous election cycles and other states, Trump endorsements have been mixed.

We've seen him even beyond congressional races, like in Arizona and Georgia, states that are much more competitive.

You know, he'll give his seal of approval and sometimes that candidate has been successful in sometimes they haven't.

I do think with the going back to the all politics is local argument, I think it'll be interesting to see how it plays in the state legislative races, because these are we're talking about several longstanding incumbents, people who are known within the district, people who have a lot of clout and respect.

So decades in some cases, I mean, people have been in office.

So so does that endorsement from the president, flip?

Does does that do enough to make a difference?

I would also add, this is a really exciting election cycle, in large part because of redistricting.

So you're talking about not just the primaries where you do have challengers for long standing incumbents for the Republican side, but then you also have 91 of the House seats, have Democratic candidates that are running now, all 25 of the Indiana state Senate seats have Democrats running to so minimal.

You have some kind of competition.

Some of them may be sacrificial lambs.

I'm not saying they're all quality candidates or viable candidates, but that is really interesting and gives voters something, I think, to come out to the polls for and something to look and and be excited, enraged.

Whatever engaged about gets people off, off their couches and out to to the polls.

And I should point out, the money's not just while the you do have these organizations that are promised to support the Trump allies, those who supported redistricting, you also, you have Rod Brey, the Senate president pro tem, who voted against, the measure sitting on, I think, about $3 million that theoretically could be used to counter some of those things.

So, I mean, I guess we'll see advertising in races to a degree we would not have seen in Indiana before.

Right?

I mean, I think normally in one of these state Senate races, you maybe think of 100, $150,000.

When you look at the Jim Banks money, when you look at, TPUs, a club for growth, these could be seven, $800,000 in each one of these districts.

Now, how do you spend that money?

Do TV ads move things anymore?

Especially since it's such a compressed?

I mean, we're looking at, a primary that's on May 5th, so it's.

But I do think Indiana's in a particularly, special situation and that the president's numbers here are actually still really strong.

While there's been some national falloff we haven't really seen with the president.

And in fact, if you sort of think statewide, if you look at who's sort of in the strongest position the president, Senator Banks, and I think we'll get to this later.

But Diego Morales, they actually have not suffered very much.

Secretary of state.

Right.

But Senator Young, the governor, Brian, their numbers are the ones that seem to be weakening.

And so and those are the ones who maybe are more opposed to the, are sort of they were post redistricting.

And so it's going to be interesting dynamic here of how that plays out, given that, when Republicans in this state are sort of in line with the president, they do better.

We didn't see it in terms of the vote.

Right.

We got a 21, 19.

And so was that because of, those particular districts are are Trump resistant?

I don't know what we'll find out.

But it's going to be pretty amazing to see.

Indiana was an outlier as far as I know.

These kinds of redistricting measures have been halted in other states, but primarily by courts, by court action.

I'm not sure it's been voted down in is such a clear fashion as it was here.

Kansas entertained the idea and then decided not to go forward with it.

So they were also really interesting.

And that happened before Indiana.

But to your point, most states did go through with it.

I mean, California and Texas still got some are still even as we say, so we really were an outlier there.

And I think that does say something to the unique politics that we see here as well.

Well, I also think that's one of the things that something like President Trump will remember, of course, when it comes to Governor Ron.

Yes, right.

And that in particular, especially since the time that since now Virginia has moved their maps, Maryland has moved their maps.

And so they've made the playing field more difficult for the president, who was really trying to, counter historical trends.

Right.

We always know the president's party loses seats nationally other than what FDR one time President Clinton after an impeachment and then, President Bush after nine over 11.

Other than those three, the present party always loses seats.

And so this was sort of a unique, and fairly clever, way of trying to counter that historical, sweep.

Right.

And, and you pointed out and I guess this is something you tell your first year students about primary voters.

They tend to be the most zealous, both on the left and the right.

So one could argue you made the point that voters have tended to reward those individuals endorsed by the president, by Donald Trump, at least at the primary level.

At what point in some of these districts are so lopsided?

I mean, they're not going to flip necessarily, in the general election, but is there a risk that in getting the Trump endorsed, if that's in fact the way this breaks, you know, zealous MAGA candidate that you alienate, general election voters in some of these districts that have been considered safe, and it's just a matter of who's going to be the Republican standard bearer all of a sudden, if in fact, there's this well, going back to the first question I asked about the DNC, if there is a little ripple or a wave, are those folks at risk?

It is a risk, and it really depends on how competitive the district is, to the point that you just made.

Not all the districts are that competitive.

And so if you're looking at a district that truly does feel 5050, we were talking earlier, I think 2012 was the last time you saw a Democrat win statewide office, either with superintendent Public Instruction and then the US Senate seat that Joe Donnelly won, and he won against Richard Mourdock, who beat longstanding popular incumbent Richard Lugar.

In one of those races where you see more ideological, extreme voters in the primary, but they support a candidate that's not going to be supported in general.

I think it really does hinge on how competitive is that district in most of our state legislative districts, quite frankly, aren't that not enough?

Which is why we have a lot of unopposed.

I mean, if you look at the go to the secretary of state or the Election commission and you see who has a registered a few races where you just see one name, it's a fact, a complete.

Yeah.

I mean, and what you pointed out was exactly what we call the primary paradox, right?

That the things you have to do in the primary to win could then come back to bite you in the general.

However, I think you should tell my students we've made sort of that that sort of axiom within political science decades and decades and decades ago.

And what we've seen now in an age of polarization is that the key is, it all comes down to what the district looks like.

And do you fit your district?

That's the one thing that really is, is the strongest variable at play here, so that you can be, if you're in a district that fits you, you can stay pretty extreme during a primary and do just fine.

That's.

And even in the general, I'm sorry.

That works as long as you fit the district is when there's a mismatch.

And I think we have a little of that in Indiana that we can get into in a little bit.

But some of that mismatch.

Yeah, I do want to dig into that more because we do we will have some turnover.

We have four members of the Senate who are not seeking reelection.

Two of them, well, one definitely because of another race.

That will he'll be on JD Ford will be on the ballot seeking a congressional seat.

There's discussion about what some of the other candidates.

I would be premature for me to say nobody's, declared officially, but they're leaving.

And then eight members of the House, are leaving.

There's some other interesting contested primaries with, longtime Ron all thing, committee chair from from Lafayette.

And again, it's both side of the Greg stare bald, longtime, Republican member of the House.

What?

I'm not asking you to.

Well, okay, I will ask you right now, there's supermajorities in the Indiana House and the Indiana Senate for Republicans.

It's 4010 in the in the Senate and 7030 in the House.

Let's start with the easy one.

Will there be supermajorities in those two chambers?

Come well, see November 30th election.

Come November 4th, or we'll be gracious and say it might have to take a while to count all the mail.

A week later we'll we'll give you a little.

That's the easy question.

Yes.

Easy question.

Any question at all.

I, I do think especially for the Democrats, they see that every race as an opportunity, but so much of it is district bound.

So just because you have an open seat, of course you might have a strong candidate.

How is that district drawn?

What kind of composition of voters do you have?

I'm going to go to the easy question you didn't ask me, but we haven't said incumbency advantage yet.

And I think that's so important in all of these races.

Right.

The average for state legislatures, around 90%.

So barring those open seats that you're just describing, right.

Even if you have a challenger and it's possible 10% of the time they could win, I wouldn't like those odds.

Right.

As a challenger.

1 in 10.

Right.

But for the incumbent, especially with the name recognition, we've talked a little bit about money earlier.

And money can be really impactful though.

As you said, we only have a couple months until the election cycle.

You're talking about infrastructure, outreach, mobilization, marketing, so many different things, so many places you can spend that money in a really short amount of time.

I think the incumbency advantage wins out, and I really caution with those open seats.

Maybe Kyle Walker's in Lawrence, for example.

But how many of those could reasonably be flipped if everything else were the same?

Looking at that district, I think understanding the district demographics is so important in the elections right now and certainly in Indiana, in our state legislative race.

I wonder if some of the especially the Indianapolis seats that are opening up again, some now controlled by Democrats, some Republicans, they're drawing an unusual number, it seems to me, of high profile candidates who might appear to be, they're familiar names, maybe to voters.

So they may appear, you know, Carey Forestall, sheriff who's who's seeking office?

Jon Ruckelshaus, a former state lawmaker.

Familiar name, family name, certainly in Indiana.

Mike Delph, a former senator, both vying for those seats.

So it's it's a little bit of a twist here where you have some familiar names of voters might go in there and say, which one is the incumbent?

It's a twist.

And it's also a little bit there's some irony built in here, too.

So for example, in the JD Ford spot.

Right.

We know he's probably he's leaving to run Indiana's fifth.

Republicans are in a strange spot this year.

And at the top of the ticket, it's going to really be led by the secretary of state's race.

And so that's not necessarily one is going to bring out much support.

Democrats are motivated.

Probably Victoria Sparks in the fifth is if any member is vulnerable, she'll probably be the most vulnerable, probably, as I was intimating before, I probably the least best fit of any member.

Well, in a district that the the nature of demographics, I don't forget.

I remember when Marion County was solid.

You know, this was like Orange County, California, right?

Like solid Republican things change that has changed.

And JD Ford, in that race, might have an effect on some other races.

So for example, the one I think about is Danny Lopez.

Right.

And so you Carmel representative, right.

If you think of sort of like Hamilton County, sort of suburban voters, if they're now motivated to come out for JD Ford, do they then cross tickets to vote for the incumbent, Danny Lopez, or do they then say, oh, well, I'm voting Democrat.

I'm probably going to still vote Democrat for the challenger.

And so that's the kind of thing to play and should be noted.

Someone like Danny Lopez is probably one of the more moderate, sort of, traditional sort of business Mitch Daniels type, somebody who really voted against, redistricting in the House.

Yeah.

That sort of thing.

He's the one who's probably most vulnerable, right.

Which is sort of, one of the ironies of elections that when you have sort of these swings, the people that get picked off are not the extremes of their members.

It's the most moderate of the other party that gets picked off.

And, Martin, you mentioned the Secretary of State's race being at the top of the ticket.

Even more interesting perhaps than usual.

This year, for a lot of reasons.

There you know, Diego Morales, the Republican incumbent, has some supporters and detractors.

I mean, there are people within his party who would just assume and he does have, a position I believe, with, with the in the party to a certain extent.

But then you look also, former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard is running as an independent all the way.

He said he will be the Lincoln Party because he can't call himself under, way.

Election law works in Indiana.

Technically independent, and then a name that few people have heard about the by name, but by, seeking an office that sort of launched his father's, career.

Of course, he won that in 86.

Evan, my, I'm referring to two years before he was successful in his bid for the governorship.

Talk about that race.

That's a that's going to be a humdinger.

It is.

And I think it's that plus, redistricting makes this an unusually exciting election cycle because by all margins and standards, this should not be we don't have a U.S.

Senate race.

Right?

It's obviously congressional midterms.

We don't have a presidential race.

We're one of a handful of states that lets our governor at the same time as president.

I think it's a horrible idea, but it's what we do.

So the secretary of state is the top of the ticket, but you're talking about three, I think, well known commodities, albeit to different degrees or for Bo by known, probably best for a surname, but certainly making the rounds, I imagine in Indianapolis, in Marion County, Greg Ballard is still very much known.

I don't know about the other 91 counties.

And Diego Morales has had some self-inflicted vulnerabilities, liabilities, if you will.

But he is the incumbent.

And we said incumbency advantage does matter.

So I think this is a really interesting race.

And most interesting and with Ballard's entry, because the question I have is when you look at the way voters distribute, does he poll from moderate Republicans who look at Morales as being too extreme for their party?

Ballard obviously was a Republican before, does he does he pull from by voters?

Right.

People who see themselves as more independent and just wouldn't want to support what we currently have in office, but would want one to support something they think would be, a realistic alternative that's, really fast.

Let's get Martin a chance to answer that, because he alluded to it just a moment ago when he talked about that race and and how, you know, Danny Lopez may or may not benefit from some of these other crosscurrents weighing on that.

Right?

I think that's really one of the most interesting dynamics here is that you've got a solid sort of Trump Republican, effectively a, for lack of a better term, a never Trump Republican, independent, whatever we're going to call it.

And then you have, sort of this family named Indiana Democrat, right, with sort of the traditional, packaging of this sort of young, good looking, sort of military background.

And he's got a military officer, the sort of thing.

Right.

I don't know which way it cuts, because you have so many voters in Indianapolis who were Greg Ballard fans.

Right.

And so they may be comfortable, Democrats voting for him.

It may hurt by in the end.

I mean, the the early polling I've seen shows by with a slight little lead where several months out when that.

So I don't take that with a grain of salt, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion which way he's going to pull those votes.

In the same way, if you think back to Ross Perot, which way which votes was he going to poll?

Right.

This is not like a Ralph Nader type thing where, you know, oh, that's only coming from the left.

Right.

This is a very, very interesting dynamic here of what Ballard will do and how that upsets the race.

And we don't usually have that.

I mean, this is such a solid two party system to have a viable third party candidate.

I'm thinking, like Gary Jacobson's measure of a quality candidate, someone who's run and won and and Ballard fits that model.

You really could see a split where you see it in other states in another race.

You know, you don't usually see that in Indiana, which makes it pretty.

This would be an interesting time to do away with the straight ticket, voting because then you then you might, which I guess we have, you know, 100 years to wait on that, and we still would be waiting, I presume, because that cuts two different ways, obviously.

Before I, I do want to talk about the congressional races, because that was the whole the nine seats it was going to be it had redistricting gone a different way, you know, at least the white House projection was it would have been nine Republicans instead of the seven that are there now.

But before I ask you to to handicap that, do you want to wade into the territory that, Laura wouldn't you're going to predict the, Indiana House and Senate?

If not, well, we'll, we'll give you a I give you the same dispensation that she got.

Yeah.

I mean, certainly too soon to tell on, on on a lot of that.

And they'll come down on the individual things on the state Senate of the five.

I'm here in publicans are pretty confident about two of the five, an additional one other possible race that's not part of the redistricting.

Liz Brown up in Fort Wayne.

Fort Wayne may also be in a little bit of trouble.

A lot of that's a Senate that's, you have a lot of federal, congressional aides running in various places.

It's it's very interesting this year.

Yeah.

And that we're not all even aligned with their bosses in terms of.

Yeah, yeah.

There's some really interesting dynamics on that sort of stuff.

Yeah, it's all right.

So now nine seats.

Well, it will still be seven to Republican split in the U.S.

House in terms of Indiana's representation.

If I was a betting person, I'd say absolutely.

It'll stay exactly seven two.

Sparks and Ford would be the one.

I mean, sparks will, I think, have a primary, and hopefully, I mean, what happened last time was Republicans had 19 different candidates who all tried to challenge her, and that fell apart.

I mean, sparks when I was in for is a little bit of a uncomfortable fit for the district in that, when you go back to sort of all the Kevin McCarthy stuff and sort of the leadership challenges smacked of someone was it was a bit erratic, right?

When she would vote present, when she would show up, what she was threatening to do, and she aligned herself with some of the more extreme members of the Republican Party, the Matt Gates's of the world, the Lauren Boebert of the world, whatever.

But the thing is about a Matt gates of the world.

When Matt Gates left office, he was replaced by someone who looked just like him policy wise.

When you think of what Carmel, Indiana would produce, Victory sports is not top of mind.

You wouldn't think extreme, erratic.

And so there is this uncomfortable fit for her in that district.

And that's exactly the kind of incumbent who can lose.

I don't know.

That will happen given this race and how many, especially as a district, this is no longer Susan Brooks's district.

I was going to say.

Yeah.

Former U.S.

attorney who, who was had the seat beforehand and probably was, to your point, a match.

She was a perfect fit for the district.

Right.

But this district has now shifted and has gone further north, further east, in a way, that does tend to benefit sports a bit more.

Only a couple minutes, and it seems incumbent on us, a incumbent, to talk about the voting process.

You know, Indiana has historically, low turnout.

Sometimes we're like 49th.

You know, we're number 49.

I don't see the foam finger anybody's waving around at that.

And there were efforts to shorten the, early voting from 28 days to 16.

Didn't didn't get called, then didn't happen.

But now the president is really pushing as we've seen the Save act, which would essentially do some of the same things that Indiana has been doing since 2005 with voter ID, maybe some twists in terms of new pressures on on Mail-In voting.

Indiana, are we destined for another anemic turnout?

At least, for those who, if 100% is, is a robust turnout, sure, there's a lot of reasons we're low nationwide, and so many of those are institutional features.

So the fact that, you have to qualify for an absentee ballot, that we do have polls 6 a.m.

to 6 p.m., they're the closest the earliest closing polls in the nation.

Right.

There's some of those things that haven't changed.

So I think that hurts.

And we already said we don't have a gubernatorial race this cycle, and we don't have a U.S.

Senate race.

So those things tend to draw more voters.

But with that caveat, given the races that we do have, if there was ever going to be a higher turnout, I think it is this election cycle, primarily, we talked about redistricting.

The secretary of state race.

There are reasons people are excited, enraged, whatever.

It is much more engaged about politics in a congressional midterm that you don't necessarily see.

I don't I don't know that we're going to move up much from 49th, but I'm saying there's a chance we could be 48th or 47th, right?

I don't think it's going to magically switch.

I do think in these circumstances, you could see a little bit higher voter turnout than we have necessarily only about 30s you get the final word.

Well, I think a lot of it depends on what our gas prices are and what our loss total is in the Middle East.

And so to those things, if that motivates opposition voters, that would really see the turnout on that national effect back again.

So they were right when they said it's the economy, stupid.

I guess, we can always depend on consumer sentiments to, ultimately help persuade voters when they go to the polls.

It's going to be interesting.

And you have brought up, some points that we need to consider moving forward as we get close to with the primary and certainly the general election come November.

I thank you both for for sharing some, very interesting insights.

And we will all sit back at our popcorn and see how it turns out again.

My guests have been Laura Merrifield Wilson of the University of Indianapolis and Martin Sweet of Purdue University.

Well, that's it for this week and for this season.

I'm Jon Schwantes, and on behalf of Indiana lawmakers analyst Ed Feigenbaum and everyone else involved in the program, I thank you for joining us.

Until next time, take care.

And since I may not see you for a while, I'll take this opportunity to say, don't forget to vote.

Indiana Lawmakers is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations, with additional support provided by ParrRichey.