Micah Beckwith selected as GOP nominee for lieutenant governor
Micah Beckwith selected as GOP nominee for lieutenant governor
Noblesville pastor upsets State Representative Julie McGuire, who had been Mike Braun’s hand-picked choice for his running mate
Even Donald Trump couldn’t stop Micah Beckwith.
Today, delegates at the state GOP convention selected Beckwith by an 891 to 828 margin.
Late Thursday, the former president endorsed Beckwith’s opponent, first-term State Representative Julie McGuire, for lieutenant governor, but it wasn’t enough for her to overcome Beckwith’s outsider campaign.
The day after the May primary election, Senator Mike Braun, the GOP’s nominee for governor, had announced that he wanted McGuire to be his running mate in the fall. The last contested race for lieutenant governor on the GOP side was 1996, when Indianapolis mayor Steve Goldsmith did not pick a running mate. George Witwer of Huntington was selected at the convention that year, but Goldsmith lost to Democrat Frank O’Bannon in the general election.
Beckwith had been campaigning for the job since June of 2023, lobbying current delegates and urging his supporters to run to become one. He appeared to have momentum earlier this week until Trump declared his support for McGuire in a post on Truth Social on Thursday night.
It was the third time Trump had made an endorsement in a Republican race for lieutenant governor, but the first that would be decided by a vote of convention delegates. Unlike McGuire, the previous two candidates he endorsed ended up winning.
Earlier in the week, I reported that Beckwith had promised delegates that he would be a “check and balance” on Braun if they selected him. He also said he planned to spend part of his time as lieutenant governor teaching “true history” in Indiana schools and promised to urge Braun to have the Indiana State Police arrest FBI agents if they attempted to make a raid on Hoosiers who were alleged to have broken federal law.
