Indiana will have 2 new members of Congress from open seats

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Indiana voters will select at least two new members of Congress in next week's election from solidly Republican districts.

One Republican candidate faces no serious opposition, while the other is spending millions of dollars of his family fortune to fend off campaign attacks labeling him a carpetbagger from Tennessee.

Seven current U.S. House members seeking new terms are poised to cruise to re-election victories, although Democrats hope for an upset in a northern Indiana district. Republicans currently hold a 7 to 2 advantage in the Indiana House delegation.

DISTRICT 9

Both parties have the 9th District on their target list, with national Democratic and Republican groups sinking a total of more than $2 million over recent weeks into the race between Republican Trey Hollingsworth and Democrat Shelli Yoder.

Hollingsworth was a political unknown before he started spending more than $2.8 million of his own money and a political group funded by his father pumped in about $1 million more in seeking the seat Republican Rep. Todd Young gave up to run for U.S. Senate. Yoder has raised about $1.2 million.

Hollingsworth, whose father is a wealthy Tennessee businessman, has tried to tie Yoder to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Yoder, an Indiana University business school instructor and Monroe County Council member, has highlighted her Indiana upbringing while questioning Hollingsworth's connection to the state since he moved to Jeffersonville just last year.

The district had been closely contested between the parties before the GOP-dominated Legislature redrew it in 2011 so that it spans from Ohio River communities near Louisville, Kentucky, to the heavily Republican southern suburbs of Indianapolis.

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DISTRICT 2

Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski is seeking election to a third term in northern Indiana's 2nd District. She easily won re-election two years ago, but Democrats have hoped for an upset campaign by Lynn Coleman, a retired South Bend police officer and former mayoral aide.

Coleman has criticized Walorski for agreeing to only one campaign debate sponsored by a radio station far from the district's largest city of South Bend and argued she pays more attention to areas that favor her politically. Walorski counters that she constantly tours the district's 10 counties.

Walorski's $2 million campaign fund is about four times what Coleman raised by mid-October and national groups haven't spent any money in the district.

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DISTRICT 3

Republican state Sen. Jim Banks of Columbia City is virtually a lock to win northeastern Indiana's 3rd District.

Banks won a tightly contested six-candidate primary in the heavily GOP district for the seat Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman gave up for an unsuccessful run for the party's U.S. Senate nomination. Democratic Party leaders have disavowed the surprise winner of their primary, Tommy Schrader, an unemployed perennial candidate.