Scoop: Todd Young goes up on the air statewide
Scoop: Todd Young goes up on the air statewide
Young, on pace to raise more than $1.5 million in the fourth quarter, makes a $250,000 ad buy.
FIRST IN IMPORTANTVILLE: In a signal that his re-election campaign is strong and flush with cash, Republican Sen. Todd Young is up with his first statewide television and digital ads of 2022—months ahead of Indiana’s May 3 primary and the November general election. A person familiar said the ad buy is $250,000 and added the campaign exceeded its $1.5 million fourth-quarter fundraising goal ahead of the Jan. 30 deadline.
The ads, which focus on border security, tout Young’s visit last year to the U.S.-Mexico border near Yuma, Ariz., where he served when he was in the Marine Corps.
On the Democratic side, Young will face the winner of a primary that features Haneefah Khaaliq, Valerie Lin McCray, Thomas McDermott Jr., and Aleem Young.
TAKING IN THE BIG GAME
Several Hoosier politicos took in the College Football Playoff title game hosted in Indianapolis Monday night at Lucas Oil Stadium, as Georgia rolled over Alabama 33-18.
A spokesperson for Gov. Eric Holcomb said he was in attendance.
And Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett invited a bipartisan group of Indiana mayors. The invite list included Mayors Joseph Thallemer of Warsaw; Chris Jensen of Noblesville; Kenny Costin of Martinsville; Lloyd Winnecke of Evansville, Dan Ridenour of Muncie; Rod Roberson of Elkhart; James Mueller of South Bend; Tony Roswarski of Lafayette; and Clint Lamb of Sullivan.
Good Tuesday morning, and welcome back to IMPORTANTVILLE. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb will deliver his 2022 State of the State address Tuesday at 7 p.m. to a joint session of the Indiana General Assembly in the House of Representatives chamber. You can stream it live here.
Days until the Indiana primary: 112
Days until the general election: 301
IMPORTANTVILLE READS
Big stories about Hoosiers and Indiana issues that move the needle.
“Pence and Jan. 6 Committee Engage in High-Stakes Dance Over Testimony,” by Michael S. Schmidt and Alan Feuer in The New York Times
In recent weeks, Mr. Pence is said by people familiar with his thinking to have grown increasingly disillusioned with the idea of voluntary cooperation. He has told aides that the committee has taken a sharp partisan turn by openly considering the potential for criminal referrals to the Justice Department about Mr. Trump and others. Such referrals, in Mr. Pence’s view, appear designed to hurt Republican chances of winning control of Congress in November.
And Mr. Pence, they said, has grown annoyed that the committee is publicly signaling that it has secured a greater degree of cooperation from his top aides than it actually has, something he sees as part of a pattern of Democrats trying to turn his team against Mr. Trump.
“An Indiana GOP state senator said teachers ‘need to be impartial’ during lessons about Nazism and fascism,” by Jaclyn Peiser in The Washington Post
On Wednesday, during an Indiana state Senate committee hearing about a proposed bill that would ban “divisive concepts” in school classrooms, Republican Sen. Scott Baldwin said teachers’ lessons about fascism and Nazism should be impartial.
“Marxism, Nazism, fascism … I have no problem with the education system providing instruction on the existence of those ‘isms,’ ” said Baldwin, who co-wrote the bill. “I believe that we’ve gone too far when we take a position. … We need to be impartial.”
Baldwin backtracked those comments Thursday following criticism. In an email to the Indianapolis Star, Baldwin said he was focused on the “big picture” of preventing teachers from telling students “what to think about politics.”
