In a three-man Republican primary for the Indiana Senate race Tuesday night, Rep. Todd Rokita won much of the western part of the state, and Rep. Luke Messer won much of the east.
But that left plenty of room down the middle for businessman Mike Braun, who cut through a divided field to win the unpredictable, closely contested and contentious race to face incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly in November.
Such imagery told the story in Hoosierland: Rokita, who parroted many of President Trump’s favorite combative phrases during debates, pulled most of his support from his congressional district between greater Chicago and Indianapolis. Messer, an ally of many high-ranking Indiana Republicans who initially was regarded as the primary favorite, was able to consolidate votes only in his home region between Indianapolis and the Cincinnati suburbs.
Everywhere else—including Marion County, home of the state capital—was Braun country. With 93 percent of the vote counted statewide, the former state representative and distribution executive led with 41 percent, to Rokita’s 30 percent and Messer’s 29.
Such an even split was exactly how Braun drew it up. He patterned his appeal after Trump, but shared only the professional characteristics—an “outsider businessman,” Braun called himself—not the behavioral ones. He juxtaposed that persona against Messer and Rokita: two men he portrayed as interchangeable, whether during public appearances with the two or in a clever advertising campaign that earned plaudits from Hoosier political observers.
“I was up against two guys that obviously had been staging their promotion to Senate for a long time and felt that I’d have that same [Trump] dynamic to work with, and it’s just been there, it’s been the case,” Braun told me. “It was a good nose and a good sense, and we kind of built it all around that, including the campaign tactics and strategy.”
Neither Rokita nor Messer were able to break through to voters early in the race, when it appeared the primary would be defined by their bitter rivalry. National media began reporting about that narrative as far back as last calendar year. But through all the personal attacks—Rokita’s claim that Messer was a never-Trumper and a D.C. resident first, Messer’s that Rokita was a brazen liar—Braun cultivated a different image, appearing on conservative talk radio in the state and spending millions of his own money to persuade voters that he was a viable, reliable alternative.
Instead of being about the Rokita-Messer fight, the primary turned into a prosaic rap battle of which candidate could love Trump the most. It was a three-way draw—leaving opportunity for Braun to capture first place for other reasons.
Now comes the tougher test for Braun: defeating Donnelly, a moderate Democrat. A member of Congress since 2007, Donnelly held an approval rating of 42 percent to 32 percent disapproval in an April Morning Consult poll. In that same survey, Trump’s support in Indiana was 51 percent, to 45 percent who opposed him.
Perhaps out of necessity, Donnelly has touted his bipartisan credentials. His campaign issued a press release noting that he voted in accordance with Trump’s position 62 percent of the time last year—which it framed as positive, in a time when “voting with Trump” has become a closely tracked, taboo statistic even for certain Republicans. As one Indiana Republican official put it, “you need to know little else” about Donnelly’s position than his team promoting those numbers, which were put together by Congressional Quarterly.
For Rokita and Messer, Tuesday’s defeat was a premature end. At 48 and 49, respectively, the two were rising stars within the Hoosier Republican ranks—Messer was even a member of House leadership, as Republican Policy Committee chairman. But the pair gave up their seats to run for Senate and now will be out of elected office come January. For a midsize state like Indiana, simultaneously losing two well-positioned congressmen of the president’s party—with their attendant clout and quality committee assignments—is a rare blow.
“We lose two congressmen, and now maybe more important than losing two congressmen, we lose two coveted spots in Congress, which for a small state with a small delegation like Indiana are difficult to come by,” said former state representative Mike Murphy. “I mean, how often do you get somebody on the budget committee [like Rokita]? How often do you get somebody in leadership?”
