Indiana Primary 2024: Live results and analysis

We won’t be following Indiana’s Republican Senate primary tonight, and that’s because Republicans have effectively cleared the field for Rep. Jim Banks, who is running unopposed for Sen. Mike Braun’s seat (which Braun is leaving to run for governor).

Banks is a MAGA stalwart who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, the state Republican Party and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He supports a nationwide abortion ban after fetal heart activity is detected and sent a memo to his House colleagues in 2021 urging Republicans to “lean into the culture war” in the party’s push against critical race theory. . He has represented Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District since he was first elected in 2016.

By consolidating around Banks from the start, the GOP avoided what could have been a messy primary fight. Former Gov. Mitch Daniels, who had left politics to run Purdue University, had considered intervening, saying it would “soften the harshness and personal vitriol that has infected our public square.” Trump had called him a “weak RINO,” while Mark Lubbers, an adviser to Daniels, referred to the former president and his family as the “Trump crime family” in response. Such a primary fight could have plunged the state party into chaos, as seen in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, as Trumpworld continues to wrest control of the party from more establishment Republicans.

Two Democrats are running for a chance to take on Banks, but either of them would face an uphill battle. Indiana has not had a Democratic senator since Braun unseated Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly in 2018, and the Republican candidate in 2022, Sen. Todd Young, defeated his Democratic opponent by 21 percentage points.

—Monica Potts, 538

Happy primary day, Hoosiers! Indiana is easily forgotten on the primary calendar, sandwiched as it is between hotter states like Pennsylvania and Maryland (don’t look at me like that, have you seen that flag?). But if you care about how well Congress works, you’ll want to pay attention to today’s primaries, even if you don’t watch “Stranger Things” and “Parks and Rec” on repeat.

As my colleagues recently so beautifully illustrated, there are several parties within parties in Congress. On the Republican side, there are pragmatists who align themselves with the party leadership, and then there are obstructionists who tend to make their lives more difficult.

This year, there are three Open House seats in Indiana that could send either type of representative to Congress. And since these seats are surely Republican, today’s races, not November’s, will be what will effectively determine that. Elsewhere in the state, Rep. Victoria Spartz, the Hamlet of Hamilton County, could be the second incumbent representative of the cycle to lose re-election, and Republican primary voters will also choose who is likely to become the next CEO of this state of almost 7 inhabitants. one million people. So yes, the stakes are high!

We won’t have to wait long to find out the winners: polls close in most of Indiana (the parts in the Eastern Time Zone) at 6 pm Eastern Time, and the parts of the state in the Central Time Zone do the same. same at 7 pm Eastern. Follow us for the next few hours, right?

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538