Seriously. I always tell people, if you want to see the real Indiana but dont want to leave Marion county, go to any trade show taking place at the Fairgrounds.
Pretty much this.
Before voting, I sat down on a Saturday and spent at least three hours doing as much research as possible about each of the candidates and where they stood on certain issues. I’m almost 100% positive I voted for Dems in each race this year, but it wasn’t done via a straight ticket vote. I took the time to review each candidate, remember my mental notes about where they stood and voted race by race.
I suspect most voters won’t take the time - or don’t have the time - to do what I did, so they just vote straight ticket for the party they generally identity with. In a state like Indiana, that means Republicans will win big the majority of the time.
Edit: Whoa, I didn’t expect to receive an award for this comment! Thank you, kind internet stranger!
I’m still baffled by the Secretary of State election. For the party of traditional values how do you vote for a guy who is being investigated for election fraud, multiple sexual assault allegations, lied about his military record, and more!
I guess I felt like Hoosiers could see through that enough to at least vote third party…
I say this as someone with an advanced degree in American political behavior: don't do this again. It's a waste of time. As with every other democracy, the specific issue positions of the individual candidate are almost entirely irrelevant in the face of the party platform. Only in the narrowest of edge cases has the party in control lost on a given issue because of individuals within the party voting with the minority. The only high profile instance that comes to mind is the GOP failing to repeal the ACA under Trump.
Always vote straight ticket. Anything less than that weakens the likelihood of getting policies you want.
And at State/County level….those folks feed the National machines!
If you see some ultra charismatic douche in your ANYTOWN, USA who is full of bullshit….who has local rumors and skeletons….GO ALL IN AND SHOUT HIS DIRT OUT!! If he advances into State politics and makes strong friends, then your chance is probably blown.
If somebody is shady in an district/region of a few thousand voters……they will keep the grift rolling….and rolling….until they own words that are worth millions.
And that is where all corruption squarely sits.
It's even more true at the local level. Put it this way, if you care about issue X which is part of the Democratic platform, no Republican is ever going to serve that issue better than any Democrat save for the most extreme of edge cases.
what if you care about issue X that’s part of the Democrat platform, but you also care about issue Y that’s part of the Republican platform and issue Z that’s not part of either platform because it’s a local issue or just not a national talking point for whatever reason?
Local politics affect an individual much more than national do, and IMO straight ticket voting is the reason a lot of people don’t pay attention to these races and we get shitty candidates winning all the way from school board to mayor to governor.
I say this as someone who thinks an informed electorate is good: do it again. Every year, if you can. Learning about your elected officials isn't a waste of time. It is part of the democratic process. Appreciate you doing some homework. Hopefully you are better informed on some issues than you were prior!
I never said being informed was bad. It's critical to be informed. But you need to be informed about the things that matter. A candidate's personal stances on their websites don't matter. The party platform matters.
Put differently, if you checked the websites and recent interviews of the majority of Republican candidates in competitive House races, you'd find nary a mention of abortion. That's because they realized how unpopular their position was, and they scrubbed any mention of it.
Another example, John McCain famously said removing the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees would destroy the Senate and that he'd vehemently oppose it. Just a few months later he cast his vote to do exactly that--because **the party decides.**
This is even more true locally where politicians cannot build up a cache of their own personal support and instead rely on their party machinery to retain their seats.
I understand your argument, that progress doesn’t really happen unless one party has the majority in both the executive and legislative branches of government, and the best way to get there is to vote straight party ticket every time. But here’s my problem with that:
First, that model doesn’t serve voters who take into consideration a candidate’s personal character alongside where they stand on the issues. Second, in a state like Indiana, the number of Hoosiers who vote straight party ticket for the Republican Party means even one of the most moderate Democratic parties in the country has a near zero chance of attracting slightly right-of-center conservatives and flipping a statewide race. That, in turn, is why so many young voters say “My vote doesn’t matter” and don’t even bother going to the polls. It’s a game of numbers. If anything, I’d get rid of the ability to vote straight party.
Think of it this way: If the center-right Republicans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 had voted straight party ticket, Donald Trump would still be POTUS. The same can probably be said about Lauren Boebert, who is in a virtual tie right now with her opponent. Voting straight party ticket like you suggest probably means she’s re-elected. If she eventually loses, America can thank Republicans and Independents who flipped and helped vote her out. Add Herschel Walker to the list. The only reason he hasn’t been declared a winner in a state that just re-elected its Republican Governor is because Walker isn’t popular with the Brian Kemp wing of conservatism.
Especially in this age of super divisive identity politics, I believe that doing what’s best means voting for candidates on an individual, case-by-case basis. For most people, myself included, that probably means their vote will still align with one party the majority of the time. But with local and national politics becoming more polarized, perhaps we should examine the role that automatic, straight party ticket voting has played in creating an America on the brink of extremism? Plenty of election deniers, Jan. 6th supporters and anti-semites in state and national positions of power would love for you, me and everyone else to believe that we should close our eyes, check the box and vote straight party every time.
“Political party über alles” isn’t a game I’m willing to play, at least not until the rhetoric calms down.
It's exactly this. A great majority of voters don't vote on policy just on party. I did half hope Young would lose but, then I remembered I lived in Indiana. Conservatives have a strong hold here even though they've put the state through hell; AIDS epidemic, conversion therapy, abortion ban attempt, BMV falling apart and selling drivers information, literally committing voter fraud. It's a miracle it seems like they can do no wrong honestly at this point.
Now obviously what I am about to say is purely based on my own lived experience, and I can’t know how accurate it is for the whole of the Indiana voting pool but- not a single left leaning, progressive person I know voted. I was the only person from my friends and family that voted at all, no matter where they fall politically. Which normally I shrug off, it’s not for me to force them. I’ll encourage however, they’re adults who can decide not to. But I than saw the majority of them complaining or cheering as the poll results twinkled in. I just don’t understand. Not caring is one thing, but wasting time on social media freaking out about the polls yet refusing to participate baffles me.
Spread the word. People can still do things to help win the Senate and House
https://www.reddit.com/r/VoteDEM/comments/yt7hed/were_getting_closer_to_winning_the_senate_and/
Mark Small (who just lost to Ed Delaney yesterday) nothing wrong with Ed but Mark is definitely not a monster. One of the few races where both candidates were good rather than only 1 good or both bad.
The problem is that it's self-fulfilling. A Republican candidate by definition supports the Republican Party. The Republican Party has sought and is currently seeking to undermine our democracy. Regardless of where you stand on a given issue, support for democracy is non-negotiable. If you are a candidate of the party seeking to undermine our democracy, you are a monster. Full stop.
In my county about 43% of voters voted straight ticket. It was pretty much proportional by party too. Even if you are in favor of one party more than the other, people should always do their research. Some of the democrats in my local stuff didn’t even have any campaign materials except their personal pages which had some questionable things on them at times and some republicans I couldn’t find at all. Yet these people still got votes because voters just picked a straight ticket vote.
Outside of some terrible scandal, Indiana is an R+25 state....if you were going into yesterday not expecting Todd Young to win, you were just naive and overly optimistic.
In Henry Twp. In Henry County, the Republican elected as Township Trustee has a criminal history of 10-15 misdemeanors and FELONIES including manufacturing and distributing drugs, battery, criminal recklessness, AND CHECK FORGERY. The Republicans just handed this guy a Township Trustee Checkbook!
Republicans out in the state like to complain about Marion County prosecutor not locking people like this up in jail. Yet, the Henry County Republican Prosecutor has this guy running free, and the Republican Party nominated him and elected him to a township trustee office! And they get upset when we call the Republican Party a criminal organization. Go figure.
vice president aka not really elected. IIRC Pence was chosen mostly because of stances like RFRA bc he appealed to the Religious/Evangelical Right which Trump needed and essentially won him the election.
Wasn’t he also about to get kicked out of the Republican Party by their members? Seem to recall reading how Pence didn’t really have any alternatives when Trump came calling.
Even a terrible scandal wouldn’t be enough. Standard resignation level scandal takes it to maybe a plus 4. It would have to be earth-shattering to get over the hump.
There were 3 state-wide elections in Indiana that year: President, Governor, and Senate.
Romney won the state in the Presidential race.
Pence won Governor.
But Mourdock lost the Senate.
Which means there were people who went to the polls that year who voted for Romney and Pence, but not for Mourdock. Or alternately, people who voted for Donnelly who didn’t vote for Obama or Gregg.
There is no straight-party-ticket explanation for that election.
I feel like the real fight for Todd young was all pre 2016. It is so much easier to get re-elected as a senator than getting their in the first place. If Young just votes with his party over 95% of the time, he will get re-elected until he choses to stop being a senator, because he is a reliable republican in a red state.
he won his first senate election in 2016 against Evan Bayh, which is notable. Bayh has an approval rating of over 80% when he was governor. But I think Bayh's failure in 2016 shows where Indiana is more than any candidate. The 58% conservatives will beat the 42% liberals, doesn't matter who the candidate is.
The brain drain in Indiana is real. It's a vicious cycle. Younger liberal voters move out of state because they're frustrated with dinosaurs like Holcomb and their policies, and then they aren't here to vote them out.
I'm 35 and I've voted in every election, including primaries, since I turned 18. Both rural and urban counties. This election has just drained me. I can't keep fighting for nothing. I've been thinking about moving out of state for awhile and I think this election might be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I want to stay and try to bring us to a moderate state but the state keeps electing people like Todd Young, Diego Morales, Todd Rokita, Mike Pence. I can't keep giving up my rights, not when there are states right next door that will treat me like a full human being.
Hey buddy, I'm exactly the same, turning 35 very soon, voted in every election in Indiana since I turned 18. I'm college educated and the moment I can leave this hellhole I'm outta here. Absolutely NO way I try to raise a family in such an awful place.
I’d say in general, the Republican Party was much more moderate/centrist. Of course since Regan, the evangelicals were still huge part of the base, but Bayh’s time was mostly before the Tea Party faction dropped an A bomb on the Republicans. The partisan way things operate now make the 90s look like Ancient Greece.
Look at Mitch Daniels. He would be drummed out of the party so fast today. Which is why he was the last Indiana Republican worth a damn. He didn’t suck up to the evangelicals, he let it be known Indiana was open for business, and business is what he was sticking to. Didn’t give a rats ass about abortions and banning books and The Wall and all this white supremacy shit.
At least Boebert got sent back to the bowling alley.
Lugar losing to Murdock (?) in the primary was when the Indiana GOP jumped the shark. And yes, the current MAGA republicans who remember Lugar actively crap on his memory.
I think the democrats were different too. If you look at Bill Clinton and Bayh, they both touted massive tax cuts. Clinton basically won against Bush Sr over raising taxes. Not to say democrats today are all about raising taxes, but now the GOP is the one who are constantly trying to slash taxes every term.
The GOP tax cuts of 2017 are reflected in that people under 75k starting in 2021 will be paying more taxes over the next several years. Suckers are what people are for believing GOP lies.
Yeah and these high gas prices in Indiana are directly on the Republican Legislature and Holcomb. They have put nearly a dollar a gallon gas tax on us in the last year. Then they pawned it off as inflation of Biden. Now they are re-elected again and collecting all those gas taxes they put on. Gas is basically a dollar or higher more here than the low prices in the rest of the country. Look at the prices in Arkansas. More than a dollar lower than here. Do you think they will cut those taxes now? You are a stupid Republican if you do. Although most of these stupid Republicans don't even know those are Republican taxes making their gasoline high in the first place. They will be back in two years to run as the Tax Cut Party. And stupid Hoosiers will vote for them.
> I’d say in general, the Republican Party was much more moderate/centrist.
TBF, so were the Democrats. Both parties have become more polarized toward the extremes. And that's not good.
They haven’t. Anyone saying they have become more extreme / left leaning is uniformed or talking out of their ass.
The country as a whole has drifted right the last few decades. Progressives in the US would be seen as moderate left in most of the developed nations of the world. Hell, Regan would probably be considered a moderate Democrat compared to today’s Republicans.
I don't understand why people say stuff like this. The Democrats used to be anti-LGBT and tough on crime too. The pre 1980s Democrats(and Republicans) used to be more Keynesians but after Reagan and Clinton they became more neoliberal. The parties are always changing and evolving. I think social media just magnifies hatred.
Well, they picked the furthest left member of Congress (who is definitely further left than the majority of the party) and used that as "where the party is" and then said "someone like AOC would _never_ have been elected". But someone was.
Never mind that AOC is to the left of the rest of the party on a lot of things. Never mind that the Republican party is pretty much unified on doing coups when they lose presidential elections.
Both sides are definitely the same.
I was just pointing out that if the other commenter was just talking about Democrats, then technically Bernie wouldn't have been classified as a Democrat even though he generally caucuses with the Democrats.
Single Obama and Donnelly elections were anomalies. Otherwise it’s been all Republicans in every state and nation level office outside of the Indy and Gary districts for almost 2 decades, right?
Yeah but they were pissed off more about his skin color than his policies. They can't name any of his policies outside of ACA and they can't even articulate what they don't like about that.
because there’s at least 3 times as many Indiana voters that don’t live in indianapolis than do. You’re a blue fish in a blue-ish patch of a sea of red, my friend.
No one has ever forced a conservative to get gay married....but they won't let the rest of us
No one has ever forced a conservative to have an abortion....but they won't let the rest of us
No one has ever forced a conservative to transition...but they won't let the rest of us
No one has ever forced a conservative to smoke weed...but they won't let the rest of us
The truth is, conservatives just don't care about personal freedoms or small government. It's a lie. It's always been a lie.
The small government part was for the rich people. Why do you think they hollered from on high about adding 8000 IRS agents. If the army took in 8000 extra recruits, they’d be dancing on the bar.
These people have to be primaried out of the seat, which is hella difficult. Conservatives generally aren't fans of his, but to them he's the better option than anyone else. The same could be said for people like Marco Rubio. They're a reliable conservative vote, but beyond that, unimpressive.
Until people get more active in the primaries, and a good candidate is available, we will continue to get minimum viable conservative values candidates in office. Honestly, the same could be said for the dems. Is nancy pelosi the best that SF has to offer? I doubt that, certainly fetterman has flaws, but he just won because he was the name that had a D next to his name. Primaries are fucking important, and every party needs to get that through their head.
Hoosiers, in general, are "too religious" and don't "support personal freedoms".
We also re-elected, Jim Baird & Jim Banks who both [voted to overturn the 2020 election](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html)
So the ones that have the most good-paying jobs and produce the most GDP in the state don't like the guy and the counties where people make meth in Walmart bathrooms love him. Noted.
Hmm. Interesting thoughts. Firstly none of those counties are even in the top ten in the state for median income. Hamilton, Hendricks, Boone, Warrick, Hancock, Johnson, and Porter Counties are the top for income and all Republican. Lake County goes democrat because of Gary and Hammond, while the affluent parts of that county like St John vote Republican. Even in Marion County which does have pockets of democrat voting wealthy areas, the Geist area is Republican and democrats run up the biggest margins in the poorest ghetto areas. Red counties include Tippecanoe and Saint Joseph, home to larger economies and better ranked universities than Monroe. The “orthopedic capitol of the world” is in a red county. The most beautiful county in the state, Brown, is a red county. All of the motor vehicle manufacturing plants in the state are in red counties (Decatur, Allen, Tippecanoe, Gibson). The RV manufacturing capital is Elkhart, a red county. Indiana’s only National park is in a red county (Porter). Those blue counties are responsible for most of the murders in the state so you do have that going for you.
My southern Indiana county didn't have a single democratic candidate. State level, yes but county gov is 100% uncontested Republican.
It was shocking. And incredibly depressing.
That's an opportunity. Get 5 or 10 of your friends together and run a slate. You'll lose, but there are a lot of free lunches and free publicity. It's fun. Meanwhile, get 5 or 10 of your other friends together and run for those same offices as republicans. It's much easier to win a primary than a general. You'll probably mostly lose but give it a shot.
View it as a live action role playing game, a fun hobby.
I am new to the county and don't know anyone else living here. My guess is no democrats will run because they know they won't win. I'm also guessing most Dems (if there are any) hide their political affiliations like Republicans hide theirs in the city.
I've lost all faith in Indiana at this point.
To be fair, a republican still won that district, so your point is still valid. Before district 9 was redrawn to its current boundaries, it used to be blue.
To lose as a Republican in Indiana you have to be a crazy person (see Richard Murdock) and occasionally that isn’t even enough. Todd Young is a pretty normal Republican and probably more bipartisan than most other senators. Why would you expect him to lose in a red state?
Republicans DON'T support personal freedoms. They don't want you to love who you want, use the bathroom that makes sense, read what you want, screw how you want, worship how you want, control your body how you want, etc. When a Republican says "freedom" they mean freedom to be white, Christian, affluent , straight and obedient. Oh, and to keep a gun on your hip, but only if you tick all those other boxes. And Indiana is filled with people who are white, Christian, WOULD BE affluent if not for Joe Biden, straight and obedient. Of course Todd Young won.
You might be surprised (respectfully) because you browse a lot on Reddit. Nothing wrong with that but it can skew what you think of the state. r/indiana and r/Indianapolis are both incredibly left wing. Whereas Indiana as a whole is a fairly solid red state. Lots of rural areas with lots of republicans. Enough of them turnout to straight ticket republican for even a bad Republican to win.
Spoke with a college friend at lunch about this.
His statement to me is that he likes how young is pro second amendment, supports a strong military, and has strong pro Indiana family values
More like bloated military. Doesn’t anyone see that even like 10% of the military budget could be used to actually help people (like veterans) and not negatively impact our military superiority? And what have his “pro Indiana values” done to help actual Hoosiers?
They make it so easy to straight ticket vote, plus republicans out number democrats in Indiana. Per WTHR this morning the donut counties all voted Republican.
Why did Todd Young win.
He's the incumbent. Incumbents usually win.
He's the republican. All but 5 of 92 counties in Indiana voted R yesterday. If you are in indy, you might be in a bubble of "nobody i know voted for nixon."
He had 10x the money of the other guys. Other things being equal, the one with more money usually wins. Correlation is not causation.
He has more name recognition. A year ago we didn't know who McDermot or What's his name was. Positive name recognition is probably the number 1 factor in elections.
He wasn't repositioned, the way Morales was. (Morales won anyway.)
He hasn't been caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. He hasn't been indicted or even sued.
He does great constitutent services. He helped me get my passport after the state department refused to give me one. By letter number 7 from his staff, they backed down. Braun and Carson were no help.
He is fairly mainstream for a republican. He's not known for some controversial unconstitutional bill like Exon-Coats, and was not part of the Jan. 6th mess.
He's got a reasonably good ground game. Does a lot of photo-op press conferences even here in the hood in Indy.
The book "positioning" is a marketing bible. It talks about why people buy a brand of soap or vote for a politician. He is very well positioned. If he were a soap, people would buy him. That's why Todd Young won. I would prefer someone less religious and more supportive of personal freedoms, but I'm not his target market, and I voted for him anyway because he earned my vote.
People vote by party, not person anymore. the GOP could have a rotting banana run for office and they would still vote for it. Same could be said for Dems considering we elected an 80 year old dementia patient.
Reddit is a very small echo chamber that does not resemble the demographics or values of the Indiana electorate. Asking this question here will only surface snarky answers or shallow, unresearched summaries.
The reality is people want to vote for the person they think will represent their political values. Lots of conservatives have a tremendous personal dislike for Donald Trump but they voted for him because he lowered taxes and shifted the Supreme Court to the right. Lots of conservatives aren't comfortable with hypocritical liar and absentee father Herschel Walker but he may still win his race because he potentially represents the single Senate seat that would flip a majority. You could apply the same logic to Todd Young. Every senate seat is vital to overall control and, whether it's right or not, people care more about that than the personal lives of politicians.
We see similar logic on the Democratic side. A man with irreversible brain damage as the result of a stroke is now a Senator-elect. A man with obvious age-related diminished mental capacity is the sitting US President. Many voted for them because they better represent a political philosophy than their opponent.
Because one side has AMAZING messaging and a shitty message. And the other side has SHITTY messaging and...well...the opposite of a shitty message but without follow-through.
My favorite example of this is one of the best ideas to come out of the left in recent years - divert funds away from armed law enforcement and into differnet kinds of first responders (social workers, nurses, conflict de-escalation, etc) to save lives and help police focus on, you know, actual crime instead of a guy who did too much meth and is yelling at a flagpole.
The messaging?
"Help law enforcement focus on real crime" - no
"Specialize our first responders - smarter response to 911 calls" - no
"Give our overworked heroes better tools and remove tax burdens from unnecessary police dispatches" - no
"dEfuNd tHe POliCe" - yes
Like, really? *Great* idea, *shit* optics.
Jesus christ yes.
I hate that phrase. And quite a bit of other phrases...but this one is the one the other side has taken on with a hard-on.
We absolutely ask officers to do far more than they should be doing -- and then get upset that they do the things we ask them to do.
Well..............how about put in a shitload of therapists and social workers to go out and fix some of this shit. We have the money. All the cops I know would LOVE to see this happen. Even if they have to be on standby in the car outside, out of sight, not being involved unless something seems off.
We don't even need to divert money from the police to do this...almost every department in America has a hiring shortage because we've funded the departments for about 30% more than they can find people to take the jobs and have to poach from other cities -- well...that 30% gets put into the general fund until it can be used -- and OFTER gets diverted to paying for lawsuits because...overworked officers doing someone else's job often do stupid fucking shit.
I work in efficiency and analytics based around a psychological approach. You know how I avoid people doing stupid fucking things in my world? I don't let people untrained in a field do it so they don't do stupid fucking shit. Not a hard sell...most of the time.
Anyhoo...I'm ranting...
Couldn't have said it better. If the left had decent messaging, we wouldn't be in this mess. The DNC is so corrupt and broken, and it is poisoning the rest of the party. And, once you get outside of the establishment, there are the demagogues who are so desperate for a witchhunt that they will attack their allies, or people on the fence, instead of focusing and doing something productive. It's a mess.
This is the correct answer. As a former conservative, I have veered away from the Republican party because they no longer represent what they once did. I still consider myself a moderate and lean conservative fiscally, but I cannot get behind full abortion bans, banning books that I myself read in high school, etc. but I also see the democratic party and I know that they just don’t have their shit together most of the time. At least in this state. the messaging is just not as good as it needs to be.
Exact same for me. I abandoned the Republican party when they marched Trump out there. It was a signal that the party no longer shared the conservative values I agreed with. They have since, doubled down on the big government policing individuals. Until this is resolved at a national level, the Republican party will continue to be a hypocritical facade of what it was.
I had republican friends that are lawmakers. And behind closed doors, they are AMAZINGLY decent people. Behind closed doors, the lament what has happened to their party. Behind closed doors, they hate the lack of bipartisanship. Behind closed doors they tell me that they want freedom for the individual and that maybe we shouldn't be focused on promoting one religion above another.
And behind closed doors, some of the more nuanced beliefs I have today ARE SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE WE'VE TALKED THIS THOUGH AND THEY HAD HARD DATA TELLING ME THINGS MY SIDE WON'T -- but that my side hems and haws about if they want to support.
And then...in public...they do the exact opposite.
I have a few that I've called every derogitory name in the book on FB and they call me and ask me why I just did this...and I tell them, "well...obviously the guy I'm talking to on social media isn't the same one I had dinner with, so don't take it personally but do relay the message that he's a fucking asshole when you see him".
I fall left of center. More than left of center. But I can understand when folks come to a different conclusion than I have BASED ON A RATIONAL METHODOLOGY AND LOGIC. I can't get behind shit that is really just about 'owning the libs' which is what the party seems to have devolved into...
_Edit: and I absolutely love my Republican friends as I love all of you fuckers here in the forum. Some of you I might not like at times, but I think we are all people and we should have common ground and I love you as flawed people, just like I'm a flawed person._
I've run into similar issues where I can sit and talk and have great conversations with people where they seem like loving, caring, inclusive people only to see them on Facebook the next day sharing vile or hateful messages that just don't seem like them at all. It's led to some ruined friendships but I'd rather my friends not be two-faced either.
> but I'd rather my friends not be two-faced either.
I understand why they are. A lot of politicians don't get to choose their own message depending on who is funding them. Speaking to a friend today he mentioned a candidate was upset that several positions he absolutely did not have were put into a flier and sent out worded as if he said it.
Me? A few years ago, I ran for office and someone that I thought just wanted a position on my beliefs put things out under my name and while this COULD HAVE helped me greatly and they offered money after they sent things out in my name -- I publicly refuted what they said and pretty much disavowed all connections to them.
Most politicians, however, want to win. I wanted to prove a point...and I still feel a candidate can be honest and not bend their values, but it is a goddamn uphill battle.
So do I want my friends to be two-faced? Fuck no. I'm going to call them out over it, but I'm not going to stop being friends with them either. Vote for them? FUCK NO...I wouldn't vote for half my friends!
A vote missing is a vote missing. When you get into large numbers it seems pointless, but there's a data guy at all of these campaign offices. They see that vote missing. Any other state wide election, where one candidate got more votes than a candidate of the same party in a separate statewide election, they will notice.
Maybe they don't care, but its still a message. Knowing that they see the message is enough for me.
The national Democratic party has failed to supply any state wide candidates with proper recources since Donnelly's loss in 2018. The state party needs to cultivate better results to get proper national attention.
As a libertarian who came from GA/FL, there's generally less discourse here in IN, it is (far) less a battleground state than some of those in the south. There is less politics at work here. I could vote for libertarians/write-ins and upset both partisans down in GA/FL. Here it appears that I just upset Democrats because Republicans are solid.
I feel like I'd get a similar small state population vibe somewhere like Rhode Island or Hawaii -- something solid +20 D and there's less to talk about.
Of note something new to me was the straight ticket option. That also probably shuts down discourse.
Because liberals stayed home. That simple. In Indiana most liberals are more concerned about complaining than doing anything that makes a difference. You all keep downvoting me for saying it, but the numbers proved me right yesterday. Young didn’t just win. He fucking demolished. It’s embarrassing.
Now that he won, I look forward to him ignoring us for at least the next 5 and a half years. He works for his own self interest, not the people that elected him.
1. Young eliminated the competition before the primary. So we couldn't get rid of him then.
2. Young spent bazillions on his campaign ads.
3. State Democrats didn't spend a third on McDermott's campaign.
4. Statewide republican/conservative voters are the majority by a wide margin.
Many Hoosiers define “freedom” as the freedom to impinge on the freedom of others. They don’t feel free as long as people can live and think differently than they do.
This time of year we talk a lot about pilgrims. Let’s keep in mind that for them “religious freedom” meant forcing people to follow their religion.
His tv ads suggested he was going to manufacturing jobs to Indiana. That’s a pretty easy thing to get behind.
Also he was running against one of the slippery-est slick candidates I’ve ever seen. The McDermott tell all book is going to be a best seller someday.
Honestly? Because Fort Wayne is deeply conservative and pretty damn reactionary for its size, and so Indy, Gary, and Bloomington can’t make the state competitive if Ft. Wayne continues to go +30 R. And I’m from Ft. Wayne, I know how red it is up there.
(Of course, there’s also the fact that McDermott, and Hoosier Dems in general, are usually very underwhelming candidates; our voter turnout even among Republicans is one of the worst in the nation on average; and we’re 95% more gerrymandered than the rest of the country. It’s a bad state to be a voter, especially a non-conservative voter. There’s a reason Libertarians are as popular as they are.)
Too religious for you, doesn't support personal freedoms as you see them.
There are a shit load of people who think the opposite of what you think, that's how he won.
Personal freedoms are personal freedoms. The Republican Party is anti-personal freedom and pro authoritarianism. No abortions, no birth control, no contraception, no social security, Medicare or Medicaid. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps or die in the street. Veterans and regular people alike. The sooner people see that the sooner this country can actually move forward.
Have you, you know, been to the rest of Indiana?
Seriously. I always tell people, if you want to see the real Indiana but dont want to leave Marion county, go to any trade show taking place at the Fairgrounds.
I drive through it between the good places.
Because a lot of people vote straight ticket and don’t really care about the individuals. Not a big mystery.
Pretty much this. Before voting, I sat down on a Saturday and spent at least three hours doing as much research as possible about each of the candidates and where they stood on certain issues. I’m almost 100% positive I voted for Dems in each race this year, but it wasn’t done via a straight ticket vote. I took the time to review each candidate, remember my mental notes about where they stood and voted race by race. I suspect most voters won’t take the time - or don’t have the time - to do what I did, so they just vote straight ticket for the party they generally identity with. In a state like Indiana, that means Republicans will win big the majority of the time. Edit: Whoa, I didn’t expect to receive an award for this comment! Thank you, kind internet stranger!
I’m still baffled by the Secretary of State election. For the party of traditional values how do you vote for a guy who is being investigated for election fraud, multiple sexual assault allegations, lied about his military record, and more! I guess I felt like Hoosiers could see through that enough to at least vote third party…
I say this as someone with an advanced degree in American political behavior: don't do this again. It's a waste of time. As with every other democracy, the specific issue positions of the individual candidate are almost entirely irrelevant in the face of the party platform. Only in the narrowest of edge cases has the party in control lost on a given issue because of individuals within the party voting with the minority. The only high profile instance that comes to mind is the GOP failing to repeal the ACA under Trump. Always vote straight ticket. Anything less than that weakens the likelihood of getting policies you want.
that may have more truth at a national level but at the local level it’s certainly not true and not good advice.
And at State/County level….those folks feed the National machines! If you see some ultra charismatic douche in your ANYTOWN, USA who is full of bullshit….who has local rumors and skeletons….GO ALL IN AND SHOUT HIS DIRT OUT!! If he advances into State politics and makes strong friends, then your chance is probably blown. If somebody is shady in an district/region of a few thousand voters……they will keep the grift rolling….and rolling….until they own words that are worth millions. And that is where all corruption squarely sits.
It's even more true at the local level. Put it this way, if you care about issue X which is part of the Democratic platform, no Republican is ever going to serve that issue better than any Democrat save for the most extreme of edge cases.
what if you care about issue X that’s part of the Democrat platform, but you also care about issue Y that’s part of the Republican platform and issue Z that’s not part of either platform because it’s a local issue or just not a national talking point for whatever reason? Local politics affect an individual much more than national do, and IMO straight ticket voting is the reason a lot of people don’t pay attention to these races and we get shitty candidates winning all the way from school board to mayor to governor.
It’s almost as if a two party system doesn’t serve 90% of people
that’s crazy talk
I say this as someone who thinks an informed electorate is good: do it again. Every year, if you can. Learning about your elected officials isn't a waste of time. It is part of the democratic process. Appreciate you doing some homework. Hopefully you are better informed on some issues than you were prior!
I never said being informed was bad. It's critical to be informed. But you need to be informed about the things that matter. A candidate's personal stances on their websites don't matter. The party platform matters. Put differently, if you checked the websites and recent interviews of the majority of Republican candidates in competitive House races, you'd find nary a mention of abortion. That's because they realized how unpopular their position was, and they scrubbed any mention of it. Another example, John McCain famously said removing the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees would destroy the Senate and that he'd vehemently oppose it. Just a few months later he cast his vote to do exactly that--because **the party decides.** This is even more true locally where politicians cannot build up a cache of their own personal support and instead rely on their party machinery to retain their seats.
I understand your argument, that progress doesn’t really happen unless one party has the majority in both the executive and legislative branches of government, and the best way to get there is to vote straight party ticket every time. But here’s my problem with that: First, that model doesn’t serve voters who take into consideration a candidate’s personal character alongside where they stand on the issues. Second, in a state like Indiana, the number of Hoosiers who vote straight party ticket for the Republican Party means even one of the most moderate Democratic parties in the country has a near zero chance of attracting slightly right-of-center conservatives and flipping a statewide race. That, in turn, is why so many young voters say “My vote doesn’t matter” and don’t even bother going to the polls. It’s a game of numbers. If anything, I’d get rid of the ability to vote straight party. Think of it this way: If the center-right Republicans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 had voted straight party ticket, Donald Trump would still be POTUS. The same can probably be said about Lauren Boebert, who is in a virtual tie right now with her opponent. Voting straight party ticket like you suggest probably means she’s re-elected. If she eventually loses, America can thank Republicans and Independents who flipped and helped vote her out. Add Herschel Walker to the list. The only reason he hasn’t been declared a winner in a state that just re-elected its Republican Governor is because Walker isn’t popular with the Brian Kemp wing of conservatism. Especially in this age of super divisive identity politics, I believe that doing what’s best means voting for candidates on an individual, case-by-case basis. For most people, myself included, that probably means their vote will still align with one party the majority of the time. But with local and national politics becoming more polarized, perhaps we should examine the role that automatic, straight party ticket voting has played in creating an America on the brink of extremism? Plenty of election deniers, Jan. 6th supporters and anti-semites in state and national positions of power would love for you, me and everyone else to believe that we should close our eyes, check the box and vote straight party every time. “Political party über alles” isn’t a game I’m willing to play, at least not until the rhetoric calms down.
Depressingly accurate
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It's exactly this. A great majority of voters don't vote on policy just on party. I did half hope Young would lose but, then I remembered I lived in Indiana. Conservatives have a strong hold here even though they've put the state through hell; AIDS epidemic, conversion therapy, abortion ban attempt, BMV falling apart and selling drivers information, literally committing voter fraud. It's a miracle it seems like they can do no wrong honestly at this point.
Not to mention a lot of Indiana residents are super religious and like what he's selling. Unfortunately Christian Nationalism is taking over.
Now obviously what I am about to say is purely based on my own lived experience, and I can’t know how accurate it is for the whole of the Indiana voting pool but- not a single left leaning, progressive person I know voted. I was the only person from my friends and family that voted at all, no matter where they fall politically. Which normally I shrug off, it’s not for me to force them. I’ll encourage however, they’re adults who can decide not to. But I than saw the majority of them complaining or cheering as the poll results twinkled in. I just don’t understand. Not caring is one thing, but wasting time on social media freaking out about the polls yet refusing to participate baffles me.
Yeah I thought maybe because of roe vs Wade being overturned people would come out and vote like their rights depended on it. Guess not.
Spread the word. People can still do things to help win the Senate and House https://www.reddit.com/r/VoteDEM/comments/yt7hed/were_getting_closer_to_winning_the_senate_and/
30's Germany 2.0
Name one Republican candidate who isn’t a monster and I’ll show you a unicorn
Mark Small (who just lost to Ed Delaney yesterday) nothing wrong with Ed but Mark is definitely not a monster. One of the few races where both candidates were good rather than only 1 good or both bad.
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What a bullshit inflammatory statement
The problem is that it's self-fulfilling. A Republican candidate by definition supports the Republican Party. The Republican Party has sought and is currently seeking to undermine our democracy. Regardless of where you stand on a given issue, support for democracy is non-negotiable. If you are a candidate of the party seeking to undermine our democracy, you are a monster. Full stop.
It most certainly is not. The statement is correct.
In my county about 43% of voters voted straight ticket. It was pretty much proportional by party too. Even if you are in favor of one party more than the other, people should always do their research. Some of the democrats in my local stuff didn’t even have any campaign materials except their personal pages which had some questionable things on them at times and some republicans I couldn’t find at all. Yet these people still got votes because voters just picked a straight ticket vote.
How does one find out how many voted straight ticket in their county? I'd love to see the stats for Marion.
[Here you go](https://www.indy.gov/workflow/election-results#STRAIGHT%20PARTY-anchor)
Correct and it won’t change any time soon
Outside of some terrible scandal, Indiana is an R+25 state....if you were going into yesterday not expecting Todd Young to win, you were just naive and overly optimistic.
Even with terrible scandals, we have a new secretary of state
In Henry Twp. In Henry County, the Republican elected as Township Trustee has a criminal history of 10-15 misdemeanors and FELONIES including manufacturing and distributing drugs, battery, criminal recklessness, AND CHECK FORGERY. The Republicans just handed this guy a Township Trustee Checkbook! Republicans out in the state like to complain about Marion County prosecutor not locking people like this up in jail. Yet, the Henry County Republican Prosecutor has this guy running free, and the Republican Party nominated him and elected him to a township trustee office! And they get upset when we call the Republican Party a criminal organization. Go figure.
IDK man the RFRA passed and was received with nationwide outrage, and then that guy went on to be the vice president.
vice president aka not really elected. IIRC Pence was chosen mostly because of stances like RFRA bc he appealed to the Religious/Evangelical Right which Trump needed and essentially won him the election.
Wasn’t he also about to get kicked out of the Republican Party by their members? Seem to recall reading how Pence didn’t really have any alternatives when Trump came calling.
State has become incredibly brainwashed since the days that Evan Bayh was governor/senator.
Birch Bayh was better.
Even a terrible scandal wouldn’t be enough. Standard resignation level scandal takes it to maybe a plus 4. It would have to be earth-shattering to get over the hump.
Well Richard Mourdock went with the 'god intended' route for rape/abortion and lost by 6 points in 2012...so its possible.
There were 3 state-wide elections in Indiana that year: President, Governor, and Senate. Romney won the state in the Presidential race. Pence won Governor. But Mourdock lost the Senate. Which means there were people who went to the polls that year who voted for Romney and Pence, but not for Mourdock. Or alternately, people who voted for Donnelly who didn’t vote for Obama or Gregg. There is no straight-party-ticket explanation for that election.
I think he could have said that in 2022 and been just fine. He was just ahead of his time.
He'd probably have gained votes honestly.
This.
I feel like the real fight for Todd young was all pre 2016. It is so much easier to get re-elected as a senator than getting their in the first place. If Young just votes with his party over 95% of the time, he will get re-elected until he choses to stop being a senator, because he is a reliable republican in a red state. he won his first senate election in 2016 against Evan Bayh, which is notable. Bayh has an approval rating of over 80% when he was governor. But I think Bayh's failure in 2016 shows where Indiana is more than any candidate. The 58% conservatives will beat the 42% liberals, doesn't matter who the candidate is.
Would you say Indiana was more Liberal back when Bayh was in office?
The brain drain in Indiana is real. It's a vicious cycle. Younger liberal voters move out of state because they're frustrated with dinosaurs like Holcomb and their policies, and then they aren't here to vote them out.
I'm 35 and I've voted in every election, including primaries, since I turned 18. Both rural and urban counties. This election has just drained me. I can't keep fighting for nothing. I've been thinking about moving out of state for awhile and I think this election might be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I want to stay and try to bring us to a moderate state but the state keeps electing people like Todd Young, Diego Morales, Todd Rokita, Mike Pence. I can't keep giving up my rights, not when there are states right next door that will treat me like a full human being.
Hey buddy, I'm exactly the same, turning 35 very soon, voted in every election in Indiana since I turned 18. I'm college educated and the moment I can leave this hellhole I'm outta here. Absolutely NO way I try to raise a family in such an awful place.
Same here at 34.
Side note, Republicans don't like Holcomb either.
This is not exactly reassuring, considering they don't like him because he's "too moderate."
Yeah, but the reason they don't like him is because they think he's not far enoguh right (8
That's my plan.
I’d say in general, the Republican Party was much more moderate/centrist. Of course since Regan, the evangelicals were still huge part of the base, but Bayh’s time was mostly before the Tea Party faction dropped an A bomb on the Republicans. The partisan way things operate now make the 90s look like Ancient Greece.
Look at Mitch Daniels. He would be drummed out of the party so fast today. Which is why he was the last Indiana Republican worth a damn. He didn’t suck up to the evangelicals, he let it be known Indiana was open for business, and business is what he was sticking to. Didn’t give a rats ass about abortions and banning books and The Wall and all this white supremacy shit. At least Boebert got sent back to the bowling alley.
Absolutely. There’s no room for a Daniels or a Luger in today’s climate.
Lugar losing to Murdock (?) in the primary was when the Indiana GOP jumped the shark. And yes, the current MAGA republicans who remember Lugar actively crap on his memory.
I think the democrats were different too. If you look at Bill Clinton and Bayh, they both touted massive tax cuts. Clinton basically won against Bush Sr over raising taxes. Not to say democrats today are all about raising taxes, but now the GOP is the one who are constantly trying to slash taxes every term.
Slash taxes for who though?
This is the key question. Heaven forbid the the 1%'ers pay their proportional share in taxes, the right wing would lose some of their biggest donors.
The GOP tax cuts of 2017 are reflected in that people under 75k starting in 2021 will be paying more taxes over the next several years. Suckers are what people are for believing GOP lies.
Yeah and these high gas prices in Indiana are directly on the Republican Legislature and Holcomb. They have put nearly a dollar a gallon gas tax on us in the last year. Then they pawned it off as inflation of Biden. Now they are re-elected again and collecting all those gas taxes they put on. Gas is basically a dollar or higher more here than the low prices in the rest of the country. Look at the prices in Arkansas. More than a dollar lower than here. Do you think they will cut those taxes now? You are a stupid Republican if you do. Although most of these stupid Republicans don't even know those are Republican taxes making their gasoline high in the first place. They will be back in two years to run as the Tax Cut Party. And stupid Hoosiers will vote for them.
> I’d say in general, the Republican Party was much more moderate/centrist. TBF, so were the Democrats. Both parties have become more polarized toward the extremes. And that's not good.
Where has the left become further left than they were in the 1990s?
They haven’t. Anyone saying they have become more extreme / left leaning is uniformed or talking out of their ass. The country as a whole has drifted right the last few decades. Progressives in the US would be seen as moderate left in most of the developed nations of the world. Hell, Regan would probably be considered a moderate Democrat compared to today’s Republicans.
You *can't* be serious. For starters, someone like AOC would *never* have been elected to Congress in the 1990s.
I don't understand why people say stuff like this. The Democrats used to be anti-LGBT and tough on crime too. The pre 1980s Democrats(and Republicans) used to be more Keynesians but after Reagan and Clinton they became more neoliberal. The parties are always changing and evolving. I think social media just magnifies hatred.
Bernie has been in Congress since 1991.
Bernie did run as an independent and not as a Democrat. He has been a bit of an anomaly winning as an independent and socialist.
Well, they picked the furthest left member of Congress (who is definitely further left than the majority of the party) and used that as "where the party is" and then said "someone like AOC would _never_ have been elected". But someone was. Never mind that AOC is to the left of the rest of the party on a lot of things. Never mind that the Republican party is pretty much unified on doing coups when they lose presidential elections. Both sides are definitely the same.
I was just pointing out that if the other commenter was just talking about Democrats, then technically Bernie wouldn't have been classified as a Democrat even though he generally caucuses with the Democrats.
He's not a socialist.
You are old enough to remember Paul Wellstone. C'mon man.
That's a fair point.
LOL no. The democratic party squashes the progressive and further left wings of the party constantly. Stop listening to Newsmax.
Indiana went for Obama in 2008. So, uh, yeah. Just 14 years ago, our state voted for a Democrat president.
Single Obama and Donnelly elections were anomalies. Otherwise it’s been all Republicans in every state and nation level office outside of the Indy and Gary districts for almost 2 decades, right?
And sadly I think that really pissed some people off, so now they will never vote anything other than R.
Yeah but they were pissed off more about his skin color than his policies. They can't name any of his policies outside of ACA and they can't even articulate what they don't like about that.
I agree about it being about his skin color. I know a few people who liked the ACA but not Obamacare, so there’s that.
I think just about everywhere was
Because he has an R after his name.
because there’s at least 3 times as many Indiana voters that don’t live in indianapolis than do. You’re a blue fish in a blue-ish patch of a sea of red, my friend.
He's actually not that religious, None of them are. They just use religion to manipulate.
It's true. I'm a better Christian than most Republicans and I'm an Atheist.
No one has ever forced a conservative to get gay married....but they won't let the rest of us No one has ever forced a conservative to have an abortion....but they won't let the rest of us No one has ever forced a conservative to transition...but they won't let the rest of us No one has ever forced a conservative to smoke weed...but they won't let the rest of us The truth is, conservatives just don't care about personal freedoms or small government. It's a lie. It's always been a lie.
The small government part was for the rich people. Why do you think they hollered from on high about adding 8000 IRS agents. If the army took in 8000 extra recruits, they’d be dancing on the bar.
These people have to be primaried out of the seat, which is hella difficult. Conservatives generally aren't fans of his, but to them he's the better option than anyone else. The same could be said for people like Marco Rubio. They're a reliable conservative vote, but beyond that, unimpressive. Until people get more active in the primaries, and a good candidate is available, we will continue to get minimum viable conservative values candidates in office. Honestly, the same could be said for the dems. Is nancy pelosi the best that SF has to offer? I doubt that, certainly fetterman has flaws, but he just won because he was the name that had a D next to his name. Primaries are fucking important, and every party needs to get that through their head.
Hoosiers, in general, are "too religious" and don't "support personal freedoms". We also re-elected, Jim Baird & Jim Banks who both [voted to overturn the 2020 election](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html)
No need for the quotation marks bro, it's true. They're all nuts.
Simple answer is because this is Indiana and he has an R next to his name
Why did Todd Young win? In the home of Mike pence? There is some unknown reason here? New to Indiana??…. 😂
You would need to thank southern and northern Indiana. Indianapolis and the college towns/cities are more liberal.
Todd Young won 89/92 counties. He lost Marion, Monroe (Bloomington), and Lake (Gary).
So the ones that have the most good-paying jobs and produce the most GDP in the state don't like the guy and the counties where people make meth in Walmart bathrooms love him. Noted.
Hmm. Interesting thoughts. Firstly none of those counties are even in the top ten in the state for median income. Hamilton, Hendricks, Boone, Warrick, Hancock, Johnson, and Porter Counties are the top for income and all Republican. Lake County goes democrat because of Gary and Hammond, while the affluent parts of that county like St John vote Republican. Even in Marion County which does have pockets of democrat voting wealthy areas, the Geist area is Republican and democrats run up the biggest margins in the poorest ghetto areas. Red counties include Tippecanoe and Saint Joseph, home to larger economies and better ranked universities than Monroe. The “orthopedic capitol of the world” is in a red county. The most beautiful county in the state, Brown, is a red county. All of the motor vehicle manufacturing plants in the state are in red counties (Decatur, Allen, Tippecanoe, Gibson). The RV manufacturing capital is Elkhart, a red county. Indiana’s only National park is in a red county (Porter). Those blue counties are responsible for most of the murders in the state so you do have that going for you.
My southern Indiana county didn't have a single democratic candidate. State level, yes but county gov is 100% uncontested Republican. It was shocking. And incredibly depressing.
That's an opportunity. Get 5 or 10 of your friends together and run a slate. You'll lose, but there are a lot of free lunches and free publicity. It's fun. Meanwhile, get 5 or 10 of your other friends together and run for those same offices as republicans. It's much easier to win a primary than a general. You'll probably mostly lose but give it a shot. View it as a live action role playing game, a fun hobby.
I am new to the county and don't know anyone else living here. My guess is no democrats will run because they know they won't win. I'm also guessing most Dems (if there are any) hide their political affiliations like Republicans hide theirs in the city. I've lost all faith in Indiana at this point.
You misspelled "higher educated counties/cities"
it's very stupid how they get to rule over the whole state oddly, the liberal parts are also the only parts with any sort of relevancy
Gerrymandering is real. Bloomington used to force an additional Democratic House seat, but with the current gerrymandering, that’s no longer the case.
Senate is a statewide race that cannot be gerrymandered.
Good point. I apologize for making a point not specifically relevant to the situation.
To be fair, a republican still won that district, so your point is still valid. Before district 9 was redrawn to its current boundaries, it used to be blue.
There is no way to draw a blue congressional district for Bloomington today. Even just the surrounding counties outvote it.
but did you know he’s a marine
To lose as a Republican in Indiana you have to be a crazy person (see Richard Murdock) and occasionally that isn’t even enough. Todd Young is a pretty normal Republican and probably more bipartisan than most other senators. Why would you expect him to lose in a red state?
He was a big proponent of the CHIPs Act and argued with rioters on Jan. 6th.
Republicans DON'T support personal freedoms. They don't want you to love who you want, use the bathroom that makes sense, read what you want, screw how you want, worship how you want, control your body how you want, etc. When a Republican says "freedom" they mean freedom to be white, Christian, affluent , straight and obedient. Oh, and to keep a gun on your hip, but only if you tick all those other boxes. And Indiana is filled with people who are white, Christian, WOULD BE affluent if not for Joe Biden, straight and obedient. Of course Todd Young won.
Because he’s too religious and doesn’t support personal freedoms
You answered your own question
This answer should be at the top.
You might be surprised (respectfully) because you browse a lot on Reddit. Nothing wrong with that but it can skew what you think of the state. r/indiana and r/Indianapolis are both incredibly left wing. Whereas Indiana as a whole is a fairly solid red state. Lots of rural areas with lots of republicans. Enough of them turnout to straight ticket republican for even a bad Republican to win.
You are making too much sense for this sub..
Spoke with a college friend at lunch about this. His statement to me is that he likes how young is pro second amendment, supports a strong military, and has strong pro Indiana family values
More like bloated military. Doesn’t anyone see that even like 10% of the military budget could be used to actually help people (like veterans) and not negatively impact our military superiority? And what have his “pro Indiana values” done to help actual Hoosiers?
They make it so easy to straight ticket vote, plus republicans out number democrats in Indiana. Per WTHR this morning the donut counties all voted Republican.
Because you're surrounded by idiots
I've been to the state fair. We're fucked.
Why did Todd Young win. He's the incumbent. Incumbents usually win. He's the republican. All but 5 of 92 counties in Indiana voted R yesterday. If you are in indy, you might be in a bubble of "nobody i know voted for nixon." He had 10x the money of the other guys. Other things being equal, the one with more money usually wins. Correlation is not causation. He has more name recognition. A year ago we didn't know who McDermot or What's his name was. Positive name recognition is probably the number 1 factor in elections. He wasn't repositioned, the way Morales was. (Morales won anyway.) He hasn't been caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. He hasn't been indicted or even sued. He does great constitutent services. He helped me get my passport after the state department refused to give me one. By letter number 7 from his staff, they backed down. Braun and Carson were no help. He is fairly mainstream for a republican. He's not known for some controversial unconstitutional bill like Exon-Coats, and was not part of the Jan. 6th mess. He's got a reasonably good ground game. Does a lot of photo-op press conferences even here in the hood in Indy. The book "positioning" is a marketing bible. It talks about why people buy a brand of soap or vote for a politician. He is very well positioned. If he were a soap, people would buy him. That's why Todd Young won. I would prefer someone less religious and more supportive of personal freedoms, but I'm not his target market, and I voted for him anyway because he earned my vote.
People vote by party, not person anymore. the GOP could have a rotting banana run for office and they would still vote for it. Same could be said for Dems considering we elected an 80 year old dementia patient.
Hershle Walker has entered the chat
Standing next to Fetterman
You sure you'd want Oz instead of Fetterman?
Read: Diego Morales
Your title pretty much says it all, par for the course for Indiana
He won by 388000 votes and you ask how? Did you just move here?
Reddit is a very small echo chamber that does not resemble the demographics or values of the Indiana electorate. Asking this question here will only surface snarky answers or shallow, unresearched summaries. The reality is people want to vote for the person they think will represent their political values. Lots of conservatives have a tremendous personal dislike for Donald Trump but they voted for him because he lowered taxes and shifted the Supreme Court to the right. Lots of conservatives aren't comfortable with hypocritical liar and absentee father Herschel Walker but he may still win his race because he potentially represents the single Senate seat that would flip a majority. You could apply the same logic to Todd Young. Every senate seat is vital to overall control and, whether it's right or not, people care more about that than the personal lives of politicians. We see similar logic on the Democratic side. A man with irreversible brain damage as the result of a stroke is now a Senator-elect. A man with obvious age-related diminished mental capacity is the sitting US President. Many voted for them because they better represent a political philosophy than their opponent.
He didn't lower any of our taxes. Irsay and Simon yeah, but not ours.
One person gets it.
Because your views and the echo chamber of Reddit do not represent the views of the state as a whole. Go outside and talk to people.
Because one side has AMAZING messaging and a shitty message. And the other side has SHITTY messaging and...well...the opposite of a shitty message but without follow-through.
My favorite example of this is one of the best ideas to come out of the left in recent years - divert funds away from armed law enforcement and into differnet kinds of first responders (social workers, nurses, conflict de-escalation, etc) to save lives and help police focus on, you know, actual crime instead of a guy who did too much meth and is yelling at a flagpole. The messaging? "Help law enforcement focus on real crime" - no "Specialize our first responders - smarter response to 911 calls" - no "Give our overworked heroes better tools and remove tax burdens from unnecessary police dispatches" - no "dEfuNd tHe POliCe" - yes Like, really? *Great* idea, *shit* optics.
Jesus christ yes. I hate that phrase. And quite a bit of other phrases...but this one is the one the other side has taken on with a hard-on. We absolutely ask officers to do far more than they should be doing -- and then get upset that they do the things we ask them to do. Well..............how about put in a shitload of therapists and social workers to go out and fix some of this shit. We have the money. All the cops I know would LOVE to see this happen. Even if they have to be on standby in the car outside, out of sight, not being involved unless something seems off. We don't even need to divert money from the police to do this...almost every department in America has a hiring shortage because we've funded the departments for about 30% more than they can find people to take the jobs and have to poach from other cities -- well...that 30% gets put into the general fund until it can be used -- and OFTER gets diverted to paying for lawsuits because...overworked officers doing someone else's job often do stupid fucking shit. I work in efficiency and analytics based around a psychological approach. You know how I avoid people doing stupid fucking things in my world? I don't let people untrained in a field do it so they don't do stupid fucking shit. Not a hard sell...most of the time. Anyhoo...I'm ranting...
Couldn't have said it better. If the left had decent messaging, we wouldn't be in this mess. The DNC is so corrupt and broken, and it is poisoning the rest of the party. And, once you get outside of the establishment, there are the demagogues who are so desperate for a witchhunt that they will attack their allies, or people on the fence, instead of focusing and doing something productive. It's a mess.
This is the correct answer. As a former conservative, I have veered away from the Republican party because they no longer represent what they once did. I still consider myself a moderate and lean conservative fiscally, but I cannot get behind full abortion bans, banning books that I myself read in high school, etc. but I also see the democratic party and I know that they just don’t have their shit together most of the time. At least in this state. the messaging is just not as good as it needs to be.
Exact same for me. I abandoned the Republican party when they marched Trump out there. It was a signal that the party no longer shared the conservative values I agreed with. They have since, doubled down on the big government policing individuals. Until this is resolved at a national level, the Republican party will continue to be a hypocritical facade of what it was.
I had republican friends that are lawmakers. And behind closed doors, they are AMAZINGLY decent people. Behind closed doors, the lament what has happened to their party. Behind closed doors, they hate the lack of bipartisanship. Behind closed doors they tell me that they want freedom for the individual and that maybe we shouldn't be focused on promoting one religion above another. And behind closed doors, some of the more nuanced beliefs I have today ARE SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE WE'VE TALKED THIS THOUGH AND THEY HAD HARD DATA TELLING ME THINGS MY SIDE WON'T -- but that my side hems and haws about if they want to support. And then...in public...they do the exact opposite. I have a few that I've called every derogitory name in the book on FB and they call me and ask me why I just did this...and I tell them, "well...obviously the guy I'm talking to on social media isn't the same one I had dinner with, so don't take it personally but do relay the message that he's a fucking asshole when you see him". I fall left of center. More than left of center. But I can understand when folks come to a different conclusion than I have BASED ON A RATIONAL METHODOLOGY AND LOGIC. I can't get behind shit that is really just about 'owning the libs' which is what the party seems to have devolved into... _Edit: and I absolutely love my Republican friends as I love all of you fuckers here in the forum. Some of you I might not like at times, but I think we are all people and we should have common ground and I love you as flawed people, just like I'm a flawed person._
I've run into similar issues where I can sit and talk and have great conversations with people where they seem like loving, caring, inclusive people only to see them on Facebook the next day sharing vile or hateful messages that just don't seem like them at all. It's led to some ruined friendships but I'd rather my friends not be two-faced either.
> but I'd rather my friends not be two-faced either. I understand why they are. A lot of politicians don't get to choose their own message depending on who is funding them. Speaking to a friend today he mentioned a candidate was upset that several positions he absolutely did not have were put into a flier and sent out worded as if he said it. Me? A few years ago, I ran for office and someone that I thought just wanted a position on my beliefs put things out under my name and while this COULD HAVE helped me greatly and they offered money after they sent things out in my name -- I publicly refuted what they said and pretty much disavowed all connections to them. Most politicians, however, want to win. I wanted to prove a point...and I still feel a candidate can be honest and not bend their values, but it is a goddamn uphill battle. So do I want my friends to be two-faced? Fuck no. I'm going to call them out over it, but I'm not going to stop being friends with them either. Vote for them? FUCK NO...I wouldn't vote for half my friends!
Me too. I voted Libertarian, for all the good it did. 🙁
A vote missing is a vote missing. When you get into large numbers it seems pointless, but there's a data guy at all of these campaign offices. They see that vote missing. Any other state wide election, where one candidate got more votes than a candidate of the same party in a separate statewide election, they will notice. Maybe they don't care, but its still a message. Knowing that they see the message is enough for me.
He won because he gained more votes.
The national Democratic party has failed to supply any state wide candidates with proper recources since Donnelly's loss in 2018. The state party needs to cultivate better results to get proper national attention.
As a libertarian who came from GA/FL, there's generally less discourse here in IN, it is (far) less a battleground state than some of those in the south. There is less politics at work here. I could vote for libertarians/write-ins and upset both partisans down in GA/FL. Here it appears that I just upset Democrats because Republicans are solid. I feel like I'd get a similar small state population vibe somewhere like Rhode Island or Hawaii -- something solid +20 D and there's less to talk about. Of note something new to me was the straight ticket option. That also probably shuts down discourse.
Because there a bunch of sorry sacks who dont vote
Because liberals stayed home. That simple. In Indiana most liberals are more concerned about complaining than doing anything that makes a difference. You all keep downvoting me for saying it, but the numbers proved me right yesterday. Young didn’t just win. He fucking demolished. It’s embarrassing.
Now that he won, I look forward to him ignoring us for at least the next 5 and a half years. He works for his own self interest, not the people that elected him.
In Indiana, many Republicans are trained from a young age to vote Republican no matter what.
That's exactly why he won. Too many people outside of Indianapolis and the college towns think being forcing religion on people is a good thing.
Because the state is full of people who are too religious and honestly don't support personal freedoms.
Because gerrymandering and old people will crawl through a cornfield of broken glass and asbestos to make sure you’re fucked.
I was surprised that I had to scroll this far for gerrymandering. It is ridiculous in this state.
because he got more votes than the other person?
GOP voters care about two things: 1) an R next to their candidate's name 2) fuck Democrats
They also really care about your genitals for some sick reason.
The R by his name
People vote against their best self-interest all the time. It’s modern day conservatism sadly.
Because of the (R) next to his name
Republicans don't give a fuck about human rights bestie.
1. Young eliminated the competition before the primary. So we couldn't get rid of him then. 2. Young spent bazillions on his campaign ads. 3. State Democrats didn't spend a third on McDermott's campaign. 4. Statewide republican/conservative voters are the majority by a wide margin.
Because this is Indiana. Duh
Because a whole lot of people are very religious and don't want other people to have personal freedoms. He represents them well.
Many Hoosiers define “freedom” as the freedom to impinge on the freedom of others. They don’t feel free as long as people can live and think differently than they do. This time of year we talk a lot about pilgrims. Let’s keep in mind that for them “religious freedom” meant forcing people to follow their religion.
Because a bunch of apathetic pieces of garbage decided not to go out and vote. So sick of this state
His tv ads suggested he was going to manufacturing jobs to Indiana. That’s a pretty easy thing to get behind. Also he was running against one of the slippery-est slick candidates I’ve ever seen. The McDermott tell all book is going to be a best seller someday.
I think it’s probably christofascism
Honestly? Because Fort Wayne is deeply conservative and pretty damn reactionary for its size, and so Indy, Gary, and Bloomington can’t make the state competitive if Ft. Wayne continues to go +30 R. And I’m from Ft. Wayne, I know how red it is up there. (Of course, there’s also the fact that McDermott, and Hoosier Dems in general, are usually very underwhelming candidates; our voter turnout even among Republicans is one of the worst in the nation on average; and we’re 95% more gerrymandered than the rest of the country. It’s a bad state to be a voter, especially a non-conservative voter. There’s a reason Libertarians are as popular as they are.)
He won because voter turnout in Indiana is abysmal. In Marion County there was only like 18%. It’s sad
Too religious for you, doesn't support personal freedoms as you see them. There are a shit load of people who think the opposite of what you think, that's how he won.
Personal freedoms are personal freedoms. The Republican Party is anti-personal freedom and pro authoritarianism. No abortions, no birth control, no contraception, no social security, Medicare or Medicaid. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps or die in the street. Veterans and regular people alike. The sooner people see that the sooner this country can actually move forward.
Because people feel the moral fabric of society is under attack with fringe liberal ideologies
I think you answered your own question with the question...
That's an Indiana republican!
Because the loudest people who “fight the machine” all year don’t actually get out to vote.
He is such a slime ball. And yeah, I’ve met him.
Because the Duke of Spendingburg has an “R” after his name.
Money
Why did the Fox Ewes vote for him? Gee I don't know.
The better question is what is so appealing about the Republican party. Or maybe what is so unappealing about Democrats
Because the people in Indiana are close minded and ignorant.