INDIANAPOLIS (Network Indiana) — A delay in drawing new legislative districts means would-be candidates won’t know whether they’re eligible to run until about three months before filing opens.
Candidate filing opens January 5, but the Census Bureau is late in delivering the detailed population data needed to draw those districts. The new maps won’t be drawn until September or October. That complicates things for party leaders trying to identify the most winnable races and recruit candidates for them. 25 state Senate seats, all 100 Indiana House seats, and Indiana’s nine U-S House seats are all on the ballot next year.
Candidates have to have lived in their districts for at least a year before they can run. Right now, no one knows where those boundaries are.
Indiana Democratic Chairman Mike Schmuhl says the delay is “frustrating,” but he and Republican Chairman Kyle Hupfer both say there’s plenty of big-picture work being done while they await the district lines. Hupfer says Republicans are building party infrastructure to be ready to support whichever races turn out to be competitive. Democrats have been on the road promoting President Biden’s pandemic relief bill, and highlighting Republicans’ opposition to it.
Hupfer says while the district lines are still unknown, Republicans have a general idea of how Indiana’s population has shifted, and thus how districts may move to meet them. He says the party’s trying to get a clear idea of what legislators might retire, to get a head start on defending those seats. Schmuhl notes some candidates who have spent months preparing to run could get boxed out by district lines which exclude them. He says there are other ways to get involved, from running for lower-profile offices to assisting the party as a volunteer.
The calculus is slightly different for the nine congressional seats. Candidates for Congress aren’t required to live in their districts, although running in a district you don’t live in inevitably becomes a campaign issue. But the contours of the districts will play a significant role in how competitive they turn out to be. Schmuhl says Democrats are gearing up to challenge first-term Representative Victoria Spartz (R-5th), whose four-point victory over Democrat Christina Hale was Indiana’s closest congressional race in eight years.
And the national Cook Political Report has pointed to Indiana’s other freshman congressman, Democrat Frank J. Mrvan, as among those whose path to reelection could be complicated by new district lines.
Republicans haven’t won Mrvan’s northwest Indiana seat since 1930, but Hupfer argues the district is becoming less Democratic, even without new district lines. Last year’s race was the district’s narrowest in 26 years, though Mrvan still won it by 16 points.
