Who Wins the Indiana Senate GOP Primary?

[Free Bird]

I don't know much about Indiana politics. What's the word on the street about who has the upper hand? Can we expect a close primary or will it be a relatively big blowout a la Young/Stutzman?

Part of me wants Messer just so we don't have 2 Senators named Todd from Indiana.

[BuckeyeNut]

Nothing in Indiana politics has made sense since Lugar got taken out.

[MarkD]

The two congressmen are not the only Republicans who are in the race. And from what I've been reading on another thread about IN-SEN, Messer and Rokita are going to campaign very negatively towards one another. To me, that means they could end up ruining each other's reputation, making each other look terrible. Republican primary voters might prefer to go with someone else, like state Rep. Braun, or that Japanese technology professor. That's happened before. It was how Russ Feingold won the Democratic nomination in 1992.

[Bismarck]

I think Luke Messer, it will be interesting to see what happens if Bannon and the crazies get behind Rokita though. Also Indiana politics makes sense to me, at least as much as any other state. Lugar losing was the only really crazy thing that happened. Young beating Bayh was an upset but given that Young is a very skilled campaigner, the fact that Trump won in a landslide, and that Bayh had such an easy to attack record, this race still makes sense. Indiana elected mainstream republicans to the governors office and senate, while rejecting the far right Mourdock in favor of a centrist democrat.

[Ye We Can]

Gonna say Rokita, who then loses to Donnelly later in November.

#HotTake

[Free Bird]

Gonna say Rokita, who then loses to Donnelly later in November.

#HotTake

Oooh, spicy. I get the logic. GOP Midterm = GOP does bad. But looking at polls in MO as a base when Trump’s approval was in a trough leads me to believe it may be a neutral year, which doesn’t spell well for Donelly. It took like 3 consecutive miracles to get him to the Senate in the first place. He won’t have the self-writing joke book Mourdock this time to put his foot in his mouth.

In a swing state like PA, this neutrality favors the Dems if they’re the incumbent, but in red states like Indiana and Missouri, we may see a couple GOP pickups, though definitely not as many as if it were a Clinton midterm, especially when you consider that McCaskill and Donnelly were blessed with trash opponents last time.

[Hoosier_Nick]

Tilt-Messer. Has a much stronger infrastructure across the state, is a better fundraiser, and will get way more endorsements from mainstream GOP.

[Santander]

Nothing in Indiana politics has made sense since Lugar got taken out.

Indiana could do a lot worse than Donnelly and Young in the Senate and Holcomb as Governor.

[Bismarck]

Nothing in Indiana politics has made sense since Lugar got taken out.

Indiana could do a lot worse than Donnelly and Young in the Senate and Holcomb as Governor.

Amen to that. As far as the general election goes I think it will be very close. Donnelly is just very inoffensive, and we are elastic enough that if Trump is unpopular he could eek out a narrow win. Young won by hammering away at the same few points over and over again and being very on message. The GOP candidate will have to find a message to rally around in this same way. For example, Young, despite being pretty policy focused in the house, basically just repeated "I'm a marine and Evan Bayh doesn't live here" until everyone in the state knew those two facts.

[krazen1211]

Messer will be the next Senator!

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

Tilt-Messer. Has a much stronger infrastructure across the state, is a better fundraiser, and will get way more endorsements from mainstream GOP.

This is probably the most accurate take. To the extent there's a favorite among the state party, it's probably Messer. I wager they'll let the primary play out and intervene only if it gets particularly nasty.

[NewYorkExpress]

Unless Bannon backs Braun, Rokita wins the primary, as he was a former Statewide officeholder, ergo he has name recognition.