Days until Election Day: 1
It’s the final countdown, and Republicans in Indiana and elsewhere are growing increasingly confident in their chances amid what feels like a deteriorating national environment for Democrats.
Among Indiana Democrats who aren’t drinking their own Kool-Aid, they expect to at a minimum hold on to the 1st Congressional District and the Marion County prosecutor’s seat. But amid a potential red wave, those results aren’t foregone conclusions.
The race to watch if it’s going to be a really, really bad night for Democrats is, of course, the 1st in Northwestern Indiana, where Jennifer-Ruth Green has made a strong showing and put freshman Democrat Frank Mrvan on the hot seat. It’s a seat Republicans haven’t won in 94 years, and if it’s closer than expected as returns come in on Election Night, it could prove to be a very, very long night for Democrats here and elsewhere.
The Marion County prosecutors’ race will also be fascinating to watch, with a national PAC targeting incumbent Democrat Ryan Mears, who is widely seen as having run a hapless campaign. Republican challenger Cyndi Carrasco, meanwhile, has outperformed expectations.
In the secretary of state race, Democrat Destiny Wells seeks to upset Republican Deigo Morales.
“It does feel like an opening,” Pete Buttigieg, the former South Bend mayor and presidential candidate, told me in a story on the race just posted for POLITICO. His former political action committee, Win the Era, endorsed Wells last month. (Buttigieg stepped down from involvement in the PAC when Biden nominated him to the Cabinet). “The truth is in Indiana, for a statewide candidate to win, you have to not only have a great candidate on our side, but also see some big mistakes on the other side.”
Elsewhere in IMPORTANTVILLE, I spent time with former Vice President Mike Pence and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg last week. More on that soon. But in the meantime, I asked them both why they thought they had emerged as key surrogates for their parties during the 2022 midterms.
“I like to think when you grew up in Indiana, you grew up with a certain habit of connecting with people on a straightforward level,” Buttigieg told me. “I can’t speak for Mike Pence, but it so often feels like the Midwest becomes the center of the universe.”
“I don’t know,” Pence told me when I asked him a few days earlier. “I’ll have to read Adam Wren to figure that out.”
Good Monday morning, and welcome back to IMPORTANTVILLE. You’re reading Adam Wren, and I’m here to help you figure it all out.
FOR YOUR RADAR
Punchbowl: “Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, is calling House Republicans asking them to support Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) for majority whip.”
IMPORTANTVILLE READS
“Buttigieg and Pence, former Indiana leaders, offer rivaling messages in Michigan,” by Andrew Roth in Michigan Advance
“I saw that my old pal, Mike Pence, is here in Michigan campaigning, too,” Buttigieg said in Ann Arbor, telling the crowd for a Democratic rally that “I would never think of myself as fit to pronounce on whether he and his wife ought to stay married” before asking why Republicans think they should be able to make that determination for Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, by potentially overturning the right to same-sex marriage.
Buttigieg stumps for Democrats in a 'cost-of-living election', by me in Politico
For the next few days, [Pete] Buttigieg is returning to the type of schedule he kept when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. He flew into the Great Lakes state from Washington shortly after midnight early Friday morning before beginning his day with a canvassing kickoff with Democratic House candidate Hillary Scholten in Grand Rapids.
“The feud with Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson that could swing the House GOP whip race,” by Politico's Olivia Beavers
Interviews with more than a dozen House Republicans across the conference’s ideological spectrum reflected a common view that [Indiana Rep. Jim] Banks’ allies are using the anonymous quote to take a political shot at Emmer.