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It’s been nearly two years since Micah Beckwith shocked observers of Indiana politics by narrowly defeating Julie McGuire, Mike Braun’s handpicked choice for lieutenant governor, at the 2024 Republican state convention.
I was there covering it for a Substack newsletter I wrote at the time, “Fort Wayne Politics,” and was among the few in the room not surprised by the outcome. Ten days earlier, I had published an edition headlined, “GOP insiders: Mike Braun has a Micah Beckwith problem.”
It was based on what I was hearing and what I observed firsthand at a delegate meeting Beckwith held in the weeks leading up to the convention. He understood how to talk and connect with them in a way the Braun campaign never fully did.
This year, we’ve got two more convention battles for the Republican and Democratic nominations for secretary of state.
On the GOP side, most expect incumbent Diego Morales to get the nod, despite a laundry list of scandals dating back before his 2022 campaign. Challenger David Shelton can’t compete with the years Morales has spent attending party events and cultivating relationships with delegates across the state. Shelton’s public opposition to the recent congressional redistricting effort likely didn’t do him any favors with the party’s MAGA delegate base.
Efforts were made to recruit a more formidable challenger to Morales, but as one party insider put it to me, if you think you’ve got a promising future in the Indiana GOP, why risk it by taking on Diego? Convention campaigns are like trench warfare, requiring candidates to travel the state, court delegates in one-on-one meetings, and maintain those relationships through calls and texts until the final vote. Traditional advantages like fundraising, name recognition and support from party leadership matter far less than usual.
That appears to be what Beau Bayh, the presumptive nominee on the Democratic side, is discovering. You might not have heard of Blythe Potter, a Johnson County small-business owner who declared her candidacy several weeks before Bayh, but his campaign is very aware of her.
Last month, Potter released a video calling out Bayh for accepting $25,000 from billionaire Marc Rowan, who has also given to Donald Trump and was appointed by him to the White House’s Board of Peace. As of this writing, Potter’s video had garnered nearly 50,000 combined views on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. At least a few of those were presumably from Democratic convention delegates.
Is Bayh in trouble? Not necessarily, but it’s worth noting that six days after Potter’s video came out, he posted one of his own, urging his supporters to consider running for convention delegate. (Filing had opened 19 days earlier.) He uploaded another making the same request two days before the filing deadline.
The lesson of recent GOP conventions — where Morales and Beckwith prevailed in upset victories — is that establishment candidates in this era must work twice as hard and can never assume victory until the final ballot is cast.
And my Democratic friends already planning that Bayh will successfully run for governor in 2028 need to slow down. Morales will likely challenge Bayh before this year’s election to prove he actually wants to be secretary of state by making a public promise to serve the full four-year term if elected.
Bayh’s answer matters. If Bill Hudnut were still alive today, he would tell you Hoosier voters have not always looked kindly on candidates they think see the secretary of state’s office as a stepping stone.•
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Gotsch is executive director of Independent Indiana. Send comments to [email protected].
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