Indiana GOP to choose confrontation or pragmatism for Senate
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Indiana Republicans will choose a U.S. Senate nominee on Tuesday from two congressmen who rode the tea party wave to Washington in 2010 but now offer voters a stark style choice of confrontation or pragmatism.
The race between U.S. Reps. Marlin Stutzman and Todd Young has featured increasingly biting exchanges, despite both candidates campaigning as stalwart conservatives with similar policies in the contest to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Dan Coats.
Young presents himself as a U.S. Marine more interested in getting things accomplished than throwing verbal bombs. Stutzman campaigns as a political outsider and small-town farmer. He has played up his membership in the House Freedom Caucus, a congressional faction eager to confront Democrats who have made the GOP-controlled House so unruly that former Republican House Speaker John Boehner resigned.
"They are both strong conservatives, but I think Young is seen as a little less extreme," said Paul Helmke, a former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne who is now a public affairs professor for Indiana University.
The race could have national implications as Democrats seek a net gain of four Senate seats to retake the majority from Republicans. The winner of the GOP primary will face former Democratic U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, who was defeated by Young in 2010.
Both Stutzman and Young have crisscrossed the state, but the campaign has been fought mostly over the airwaves through negative ads. Young has dominated the TV blitz with ads accusing Stutzman of being a career politician who puts his own self-interests first. A smaller number of science fiction-themed Stutzman ads portray Young as a "sell out," and a robot politician who will vote the way party leaders tell him.
Young had a nearly 2-to-1 edge in fundraising while racking up endorsements from groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Stutzman found himself outgunned, and additional money he counted on from conservative groups such as Club for Growth failed to materialize.
The race first took a bitter turn in February when Stutzman joined Indiana Democrats in saying that Young didn't have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot in one congressional district. An Associated Press count of Young's petitions found he was three signatures short of the required number in the 1st Congressional District. But Stutzman and the Democrats lost their challenge during a tense hearing before the state election board, which deadlocked 4-4 along partisan lines, keeping Young on the ballot.
In the final weeks of the campaign Stutzman also had to explain more than $300,000 in travel and meal charges that were paid for with his campaign fund since 2010. That included more than $3,000 in campaign funds used to take his family to California on a trip his wife described on Facebook as a "family vacation," a review by The Associated Press found.
Stutzman's campaign has countered that Young is the only one who has been in trouble with the Federal Election commission over campaign finance, noting the FEC fined Young $8,670 in 2012 for receiving more than $100,000 in contributions from "prohibited" donors that exceeded campaign finance limits or were not reported properly.
Helmke said Young is "in the driver's seat" because the tea party surge has faded and Young has a fundraising edge.
"It's a little harder to play the populist tea party angle," now that Stutzman has been in Washington six years, said Helmke, who won the GOP nomination for Senate in 1998 but lost in the general election to former Democratic Gov. Evan Bayh. "You're touting voting against Boehner, but did you accomplish anything?"