The big dilemma facing Indiana Democrats
Jennifer McCormick’s lieutenant governor pick is fracturing an already struggling party
Jennifer McCormick was finishing a passionate speech to a ballroom full of Democrats and dissatisfied Republicans who were gathered at the Fort Wayne Country Club earlier this month to raise money for her.
The last elected Indiana Superintendent of Schools, she’d been officially campaigning for governor for over a year by that point, and it showed. Her message was tight, her passion clear.
“I’m Jennifer McCormick,” she told them in closing, “and I’m going to win.”
The room erupted in applause.
Later, after posing for photos and accepting well wishes from several attendees, she slipped away to a side room for a pre-arranged interview with me.
Before I asked the first question, I told her I had been talking to Republican delegates about the contest between far-right pastor Micah Beckwith and State Representative Julie McGuire, who was GOP gubernatorial nominee Mike Braun’s pick for lieutenant governor.
“I think Micah’s going to win,” I said.
Her eyes widened.
Ten days later, Beckwith shocked the Republican establishment, knocking off McGuire by 3.6% even after Braun had called in a favor and convinced former President Donald Trump to endorse her.
Standing on the convention stage with his new running mate after the result was announced, Braun put on a happy face, smiling and waving to the crowd of delegates, many of them euphoric Beckwith supporters.
By the time he spoke to journalists after the convention adjourned, however, he had dropped the facade.
“We’ll live with it, and I’ll be okay,” Braun said of the result. “My running mate can say whatever he wants. If it doesn’t make sense, if it doesn’t resonate… Remember, I’m going to be the governor.”
Beckwith’s surprising win gave McCormick a much-needed opening.
A self-described Christian nationalist, Beckwith “makes Jim Banks look like Todd Young,” as one political observer noted.
At a meeting in Fort Wayne I attended before the convention, Beckwith had promised a room full of delegates that he would dox any Indiana public school principal who didn’t allow him to teach “true history” in their school while lieutenant governor.
He also said he would urge Braun to send the Indiana State Police to stop any FBI agent attempting to arrest a Hoosier charged with a federal crime. “Some people will say, wow, that’s super extreme,” Beckwith told them. “No, it’s not. That’s the American story. That’s who we’ve been.”
Days after Beckwith became the GOP nominee, McCormick’s campaign tweeted out a video of him talking about what happened on January 6, 2021 in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol.
“You know what the Lord told me?” Beckwith asks rhetorically in the clip. “He said, Micah, I sent those riots to Washington. He said, what you saw yesterday was my hand at work.”
On the Tuesday after the GOP state convention, McCormick held a press conference to talk about the “Beckwith-Braun ticket.” Standing next to Indiana Democratic Party chair Mike Schmuhl, she told the assembled media members that “to put someone in that position from either party that is not equipped to do that job is irresponsible.”
The stakes to make the right pick lieutenant governor were high, she said. “They are a heartbeat away from the governor’s office.”
It’s clear Jennifer fits right in with Indiana Democrats, shooting ourselves in the foot any chance we get.
That was the text message I received from an elected official two hours before McCormick was scheduled to announce her own pick for lieutenant governor this past Thursday.
By that point, everyone knew it was going to be former State Representative Terry Goodin of Austin, a small town located 30 minutes north of Louisville.
Goodin is no stranger to Indiana Democrats. He had been elected to the statehouse nine times between 2000 and 2018 before finally losing to Republican Zach Payne in 2020. Starting in late 2017, he served a brief term as House Minority Leader through the 2018 election.
According to Adam Wren in his Importantville newsletter, 2020 Democratic nominee for governor Woody Myers had considered Goodin as his running mate that year but “received pushback dissuading him from doing so by members of the LGBTQ community.”
That’s because Goodin had been making enemies among that constituency as far back as 2011, when he voted in favor of a Republican-sponsored bill that would ban gay marriage. Three years later, when a grassroots group called Freedom Indiana marshaled forces across Indiana to prevent that ban from being written into the state constitution, Goodin skipped that vote.
His views on abortion and guns seemed out of step with the Democratic Party base, too. Goodin had voted with Republicans multiple times on bills related to restricting abortion access, and in a 2018 profile in Politico, he told reporter Michael Kruse that his then four-year-old son had four .22 caliber rifles.
Goodin’s positions on those issues surely played a role in his ability to continue winning races in a district that was becoming less favorable to Democrats every cycle. For years, the southern part of the state had been home to moderate Democrats — many union members — whose votes helped the party run competitive statewide races for candidates like Evan Bayh, Frank O’Bannon, and John Gregg.
Even Braun acknowledged that at a campaign event in support of McGuire in Fort Wayne on June 1. “Everybody was [once] a Blue Dog Democrat down there,” the Jasper resident told the crowd of mostly Republican elected officials.
Those former Blue Dog Democrats included Braun himself; voting records show he consistently voted in Democratic primaries up through 2008, when he cast a ballot in the contested race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. (Braun has previously declined to say who he voted for in that contest.)
Like Braun, many of those Blue Dog Democrats are now Republicans. That’s a big reason why the GOP has become so dominant in Indiana. In 2000 — the same year Goodin was first elected — O’Bannon carried Goodin’s home of Jennings County with more than 60 percent of the vote in the race for Indiana governor. Twenty years later, Republican Eric Holcomb won 62% of the votes cast there.
McCormick was likely hoping Goodin’s presence on the ticket could attract many of those same former Democratic voters when she decided to make him her pick for lieutenant governor. What she and her team didn’t seem to anticipate, however, was just how polarizing a choice Goodin would be inside the party.
Hence the text from the elected official about “shooting ourselves in the foot” once again.
At his announcement press conference, Goodin did his best to walk back his previous positions on abortion and gay marriage. (This time, state party chair Schmuhl was noticeably absent.)
“I know in my 20 years of service in the legislature, my votes on women’s reproductive rights have been somewhat spotty at best,” he said.
Somewhat puzzlingly, Goodin tried to explain that he felt comfortable voting for restrictions on abortion because he was told the Indiana General Assembly couldn’t go “too far” on the issue.
“I was always counseled by those female colleagues who had told me that, hey, if we go too far, Roe Wade will be there to catch us. There’s a safety net there. Well folks, that safety net is gone.”
He also gave a stilted apology for his vote against gay marriage.
“At that time I did not realize that with that vote, I had totally dehumanized, demeaned and hurt thousands of Hoosiers,” he said. “I’m person enough to stand here and say I am sorry for that, I caused that hurt on so many Hoosiers.”
Hours after Goodin’s press conference, Democratic State Senator J.D. Ford told reporters that he was considering his own bid for lieutenant governor to challenge Goodin at the state convention.
While doing so would inevitably prompt comparisons between Ford and Beckwith, you would be hard-pressed to find two Hoosier politicians more different.
Ford, who beat longtime incumbent Republican Mike Delph in 2018 to become the first openly gay state legislator in Indiana history, is no firebrand. He is well-respected within the party and was selected by his State Senate peers to be the chair of their caucus.
Goodin called Ford in recent days but I’m told he was not particularly effective at explaining how his views on LGBTQ rights had changed, let alone convincing Ford to support his candidacy.
That lines up with what I witnessed at an abortion rights rally on the steps of the Indiana state house Goodin was at on Tuesday, the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision that reversed Roe v. Wade.
Several attendees approached Goodin — the only statewide Democratic candidate there who did not take the microphone to address the crowd — and asked him about his new positions on abortion and LGBTQ rights.
(Multiple sources confirmed to me that at least one member of the Indiana Stonewall Democrats, an LGBTQ group, has been advising Goodin on how best to speak to other Democrats about his change of heart relating to LGBTQ rights.)
“An apology is great,” one woman, who said she was a delegate to the state convention, told Goodin, “but in the time that you’ve evolved, what action did you take with the communities that were hurt?”
Goodin replied that in the last two and half years he couldn’t do anything due to the Hatch Act, which prevents federal civilian executive branch employees from engaging in political activity while on duty or in any federal room or building. (He was the Indiana state director for USDA Rural Development until resigning on June 14 in order to run for lieutenant governor, according to Wren.)
Prior to that, he cited his work in the state legislature fighting against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2015, a controversial bill designed to protect religious liberty that ultimately passed and was signed into law by then-Governor Mike Pence. (Months later, lawmakers passed a “fix” in an effort to keep RFRA from being used as a tool to override civil rights laws.)
“I’m not gonna blow smoke up somebody’s shirt,” Goodin told the delegate. “I’m gonna tell you what I think.”
The Democratic insiders I’ve spoken with since McCormick selected Goodin last week acknowledge that she did not have a large pool to choose from in making her lieutenant governor selection. Wren reported that at least three people turned her down prior to the selection of Goodin.
The Goodin pick appeared to be in the works prior to Beckwith securing the GOP nomination on June 15. He resigned his USDA job the day before, a requirement for him to be a candidate for a partisan political office.
Those same party insiders told me they understand the strategy behind choosing Goodin, though all expressed disappointment at the messaging surrounding his announcement was handled by McCormick and her team.
Some also suggested to me that any goodwill toward Goodin from more conservative Hoosiers was likely tied to his previous positions on abortion and LGBTQ rights, which he immediately disowned when he announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor.
None were aware of any polling data that indicated Goodin would help McCormick attract more votes from rural votes than another running mate.
Many of them had been fielding calls from loyal Democrats troubled by Goodin’s past views and votes. They each expressed concerns that party leadership telling these people to “get in line” could end up alienating a large percentage of donors and volunteers at a time when Democrats can ill afford to lose them.
As for Ford, he is expected to make a final decision about whether to challenge Goodin for the lieutenant governor nomination any day now.
From what I’ve been told, he initially assumed he was putting himself out on a limb just by publicly considering it, but has subsequently discovered he would actually have significant support inside the party if were he to challenge Goodin.
Over the weekend, I spoke with two well-connected Democrats who hope Ford runs and said that if he does, they’ll offer to whip delegate votes for him.
One longtime Democrat leader said they felt Ford had little to lose and much to gain from officially jumping in the fray. Even if he comes up short, they told me, he will have earned the respect of many Democrats across the state for making a principled stand.
However, another prominent Democrat felt differently. They told me they were hoping Ford would stand down to avoid a convention battle they feared would reflect poorly on the party as a whole.
I’ve also heard there are whispers that organized labor and Democrats south of Indianapolis would hold it against Ford if he tries to take on Goodin, though those two constituencies have much less sway inside the party than they did even ten years ago.
Running for lieutenant governor, regardless of the outcome, would raise Ford’s name ID significantly and could position him well for a future statewide run. In the process, Ford will have spoken to and built relationships with Democratic delegates from Angola to Evansville — another valuable asset should he run for higher office.
Whatever decision Ford makes, the drama surrounding Goodin’s selection appears to have already negatively impacted Democrats’ ability to capitalize on Beckwith’s presence on the GOP ticket.
As that same Democratic elected official texted me after things blew up last Thursday, “This party is SOOOO good at unforced errors.”
UPDATE: Just before 1:00 PM today, State Senator J.D. Ford confirmed to reporter Adam Wrenthat he has decided not to challenge former State Representative Terry Goodin for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.