Republican Mike Braun wins Indiana governor's race, extending the GOP's hold on the office

INDIANAPOLIS — Republican Mike Braun won the Indiana governor’s race Tuesday, defeating Democrat Jennifer McCormick, a former Republican who split with the party after serving as the state’s schools superintendent.

The victory by Braun, a U.S. senator who’s the wealthy founder of a national auto parts distribution business, extends the GOP’s 20-year-hold on the state’s top office in deep red Indiana.

Braun, 70, will succeed outgoing Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, who could not seek a third term because of term limits. Braun opted not to seek reelection to a second term in the Senate so he could run for governor. He won the GOP’s six-way May primary election to succeed Holcomb with about 40% of the vote.

Braun told supporters at his victory celebration that unlike in the U.S. Senate, where he has been one of 100 senators, as Indiana's next governor he will have an executive job that's “less ideological" and is "more about running something.”

He said his goal is to “make Indiana a place where our kids and grandkids want to move back to.”

“We’re going to take Indiana to places we’ve never seen before,” Braun said to chants of "I like Mike”! I like Mike!”

“When you're an entrepreneur by trade generally if you survive, you know how to pick the best fork in the road and there are many of them. And to me it was coming back to lead our state where you can set the agenda, where you're going to get along with the Legislature. Imagine what you can do with that," he added.

Braun quickly became the frontrunner in the race, bolstered by several advantages: name recognition, money and former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

Braun’s running mate, ultra-conservative Christian pastor Micah Beckwith, wasn’t his choice for the lieutenant governor’s post. Braun had endorsed state Rep. Julie McGuire for his running mate when he became the GOP nominee for governor.

While Indiana delegates usually back the nominee’s chosen running mate without a challenge, Beckwith was chosen by party delegates at the state Republican Party convention in June after he had lobbied delegates for a year to win the nomination.

Beckwith, who promotes uncompromising positions on abortion, gender and sexuality, cohosts a “Jesus, Sex and Politics” podcast, has courted controversy with some of his comments.

Republicans have controlled Indiana’s governor’s office since Mitch Daniels defeated the late Democrat Joe Kernan in 2004. And Democrats haven’t won a statewide office in Indiana since 2012, when Glenda Ritz won election as the state’s schools superintendent and Democrat Joe Donnelly won a U.S. Senate seat.

McCormick, then a Republican, defeated Ritz for the schools chief post in 2016 after pledging better relationships with Republican Statehouse leaders following numerous policy clashes between Ritz, then-Gov. Mike Pence and top GOP lawmakers.

But McCormick split from the GOP over education policy and changed her party affiliation to Democrat after her term ended in early 2021.

McCormick said in her concession speech that the governor's race was about many important issues, including public education, teachers, access to affordable health care and “making sure that women have reproductive freedoms.”

“We congratulate Senator Braun and a lot of other Republicans who won this evening. We will go into tomorrow knowing we still have work to do because you know who's depending on that? Our kids, our families, our communities and the great state of Indiana,” she said.

McCormick’s running mate was Terry Goodin, a Democrat who served in the Indiana House from 2000 to 2020. Those 20 years were marked by conservative votes against key Democratic issues, including abortion and same-sex marriage, but Goodin apologized for those votes and promised that he’d changed his mind.

Braun and McCormick were joined in the governor’s race by Libertarian Donald Rainwater.

In the state’s attorney general’s race, Republican incumbent Todd Rokita won a second term Tuesday, defeating Democrat Destiny Wells, a lawyer and Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who ran unsuccessfully for Indiana secretary of state in 2022. Rokita is a conservative former congressman.