In presidential race, Hoosiers finally matter as May 3 primary approaches
In a union hall on Indianapolis’ west side, an influential labor leader stumped for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
In South Bend, Jill Donnelly, the wife of U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly, attended Dyngus Day, a festival that’s a popular stop during campaign season. She was there on behalf of Sanders’ opponent, Hillary Clinton.
And in stump speeches across the nation, Republican front-runner Donald Trump has seized on Carrier’s decision to shutter its Indianapolis plant and displace 1,400 workers as a real-world consequence of the country’s trade policies.
Those are signs that the heated — and increasingly vitriolic — contests for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations are turning their sights toward Indiana.
In four weeks, Indiana will take center stage as the only state in the nation to hold a primary on May 3. If Indiana’s experiences are similar to those of other states, the lead-up to the primary will be marked by higher voter interest, campaign rallies and the political theatrics that have come to define this year’s unpredictable race for the White House.
It’s an unusual role for Indiana to play.
With its late-in-the-season primary, the state is usually a footnote — one of the last procedural hurdles — in the road to the national conventions where presidential nominees are formally chosen. Usually the races are effectively wrapped up before a Hoosier even casts a vote because presidential contenders have earned enough delegates to ensure their party’s nomination. This year, Indiana voters could have a choice among as many as three Republicans and two Democrats.
Clinton, Sanders and Republican candidate John Kasich already are ramping up efforts in the state. Those campaigns are beginning to name their Indiana staff and are either opening or planning to open offices. Trump has emailed Midwest supporters with information about how they could become a delegate ahead of what could be a brokered national convention. And Republican candidate Ted Cruz plans to announce his Indiana leadership team soon.
The campaigns likely will intensify their efforts a week before the primary after vying in several contests — in New York on April 19 and other Northeastern states on April 26, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Because Indiana is the only primary on May 3, national media likely will focus on the state. Hoosiers can expect to see a lot of candidates visiting the state and a flood of campaign ads.
“Donald Trump has a kind of a narrow path to trying to win a majority of delegates by the end of the nominating season, and I think Indiana is an important and challenging state for him,” Kondik said.
Confounding for many election analysts is that the path to victory usually requires a robust campaign organization in every state — but Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul, so far has bucked that trend, said Marjorie Hershey, a political science professor at Indiana University.
“He doesn’t seem to need a ground game to do well. He does well just on the basis of the unbelievably exceptional amount of publicity he’s gotten for his ideas,” Hershey said. “Trump may be able to get away with it by parachuting in and getting a lot of media coverage, but Cruz and Kasich probably can’t.”
Some political analysts say Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, could see a boost in Indiana from support by evangelical Christians.
On the Democratic side, Clinton, a former U.S. senator and secretary of state, seems too far ahead to be caught, but the state could prove more of a tossup.
“It seems like Indiana could be pretty close because it’s a state that is less diverse (compared to) the nation as a whole, and Sanders has done better with white voters,” said Kondik, with the University of Virginia. “It borders Illinois, which actually was very close on the Democratic side. Ohio wasn’t particularly close, but I think the Sanders campaign is focused heavily in Indiana.”
‘Here to win’
In its first weekend, on March 26, the Sanders campaign had more than 500 people going door to door to directly appeal to voters — and campaign staff said those types of events will only accelerate before the election.
“When it comes down to phone banking and door to door, that’s the best way to do it. We’re going to see if we can talk to as many Hoosiers as we can,” said Pete D’Alessandro, Sanders’ state director for Indiana. “We’re here to win. We’re not here to send a message. We’re not here to do anything other than win.”
This past Monday, the grass-roots effort brought the campaign to the headquarters of United Steelworkers Local 1999, the union that represents Carrier employees, where they hosted a discussion with former Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen. Cohen sat in a conference room with union leaders, who asked him, “What can we do to help Bernie’s campaign?”
Stephanie Evans-Gavin, who is losing her job to Carrier’s move to Mexico, was surprised the campaign made the time to stop. Evans-Gavin said the company’s decision was “devastating,” and as a second-shift employee, she woke up to messages on her phone about the plant’s closure. She’s supporting Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, because she thinks he’s for working people.
“A lot of politicians, they say one thing and do another,” Evans-Gavin said. “So that they took time out to come and speak means a lot.”
A day after Carrier announced its decision, Trump tweeted, "I am the only one who can fix this. Very sad. Will not happen under my watch!"
Trump also referenced the situation in a GOP primary debate in South Carolina, where he said, "I'm going to tell (Carrier) right now, I am going to get consensus from Congress, and we're going to tax you when those air conditioners come. So stay where you are or build in the United States, because we are killing ourselves with trade pacts that are no good for us and no good for our workers."
Last week, Clinton named Peter Hanscom, a young but experienced politico, to be her state director. Most recently, Hanscom led an effort by businesses, called Indiana Competes, to push for an expansion of civil rights for gay and transgender Hoosiers.
In Indiana, Clinton is taking “absolutely nothing for granted,” Hanscom said. He said the campaign will be a statewide operation.
“We’ve seen endorsements already from several key elected officials here in the Democratic Party in Indiana,” said Hanscom, who expects the number of endorsements to grow.
Indiana is an example of when primary contests going longer than expected can be a good thing, White House press secretary Josh Earnest argued at a briefing last week. Indiana's 2008 primary, which Clinton won by a slim margin, “gave an incentive for the Democratic Party to invest in the kind of grass-roots operations that are critical to turning out voters,” Earnest said. That helped propel Barack Obama to win in Indiana that November, he said.
But dynamics are different from 2008, when Clinton and Obama spent about a month campaigning in the state.
The delegate difference between Obama and Clinton in 2008 was narrower, placing that year’s Democratic outcome more into question than this year, when Clinton is further ahead. The primary schedule also is different from eight years ago. This year, nine states will hold elections between now and Indiana’s primary. In 2008, the candidates had only Pennsylvania to worry about between late March and early May.
One potential consequence of the hubbub over the presidential race is it will divert attention from the contentious primary battle between U.S. Reps. Marlin Stutzman and Todd Young for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, said Leslie Lenkowsky, an Indiana University political science professor.
“I think the big race in this state is going to be the Senate primary on the Republican side, because regardless of who wins the Republican presidential nomination, maintaining control of the Senate will be a high priority for the Republican Party,” he said, “and they don’t want to see a repeat of what we saw the last go-around, where the Republicans nominated (Richard Mourdock), who had a hard time and eventually lost.”
Campaign: Kasich is the “'Mitch Daniels’ in this race”
As for the Republican primary, Kasich, the Ohio governor, has hired Anne Hathaway, a well-known GOP political consultant and former Republican National Committee chief of staff, to run his Indiana campaign. He’s also expecting to open regional offices.
For now, his campaign is working to liken him to former Gov. Mitch Daniels, who once flirted with a run for president and remains widely popular in the state.
“Once Hoosiers learn that Governor Kasich is the ‘Mitch Daniels’ in this race, I think they will rally to support him on May 3,” John Williams, the campaign's Indiana finance chairman, said in a statement.
His campaign couldn’t confirm whether Kasich has plans to visit Indiana, saying it doesn’t schedule more than two weeks in advance. If he does, Kasich likely will reach out to voters in a town-hall setting similar to events he scheduled in other states where he did well, such as in New Hampshire and Ohio.
Cruz's campaign said he has amassed more than 3,600 volunteers in the state.
"We'll be running an aggressive campaign in Indiana and look forward to spending time there meeting with the people of the Hoosier state," Cruz spokeswoman Alice Stewart said in a statement. "A majority of the people in Indiana share our values, and we look forward to a vigorous campaign."
Trump's campaign didn’t respond to IndyStar requests for comment.
One Republican county chairman said he expects the candidates to come "barnstorming" in the state.
"There were a lot of chairmen like me who shifted their Lincoln Days as late as they could to take advantage of a possibility of availability by a presidential candidate," said Craig Dunn, chairman of the Howard County Republican Party.
But whether Dunn will snag a presidential candidate to speak at the county GOP's annual dinner and fundraiser is unknown.
He was told not to expect an answer until 72 hours in advance.
IndyStar Washington Bureau reporter Maureen Groppe contributed to this story.
Call IndyStar reporter Chelsea Schneider at (317) 444-6077. Follow her on Twitter: @IndyStarChelsea.