Republican candidate Mike Braun narrowly defeated incumbent Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., in the Indiana Senate race Tuesday evening, putting a definitive end to one of the closest Senate battles in the 2018 midterm election cycle.
Once one of the most Democratic states in the Great Lakes region, Indiana is now considered a Republican stronghold. Indiana voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016 and is the home state of Vice President Mike Pence.
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Before Donnelly took the seat, it belonged to a Republican senator for over three decades. Braun, like many GOP Senate candidates this cycle, trailed his opponent within the margin of error for the entirety of the race. RealClearPolitics’ polling average had Donnelly up only 1.3 percentage points heading into Election Day.
Donnelly first won the Indiana Senate seat in 2012, besting tea party, anti-establishment Republican Richard Mourdock, who tanked his chances of winning after saying that a woman who gets pregnant from rape is simply something “God intended.”
Donnelly has been adept at walking the line as a red state Democrat. He is arguably the most conservative Democratic senator, and is a “pro-life” Democrat and one of just three Democratic senators to support a ban abortions past 20 weeks. The senator also has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.
Donnelly probably received a boost from an unlikely bedfellow in the final days leading up to Election Day. Former President Barack Obama stumped for Donnelly last weekend, calling the senator someone Indianans can put faith in to do the right thing.
“Joe Donnelly and I didn’t agree all the time, but Joe always let me know where he stood and I knew what he believed in and that he was always focused on what’s the best thing for the Hoosiers that he served,” Obama said Sunday at a rally for Donnelly. “And he was honest and he was direct, so you can count on that. That’s what you want. You don’t just want a yes man all the time.”
Braun employed a similar strategy to many Republican candidates in tight races. He tied himself to President Trump and painted himself as an ally that would accomplish the president’s agenda if voters would only send him to Washington.
One factor many strategists were looking at in the race is what pundits are calling the “Kavanaugh effect,” but that did not end up swaying the election in favor of Braun.
In such a heavily Republican state, strategists posited Donnelly could have done himself some damage when he voted against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.
