Where do Indiana Democrats go from here?
There’s no doubting that Indiana is reliably red in the short term, but Democrats must continue building on new regional coalitions in the Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Evansville suburbs in the coming years.
2016: Trump +19.11%, 2020: Trump +16.06% (3.05% Democratic shift from 16->20)
On the surface, 2020 was not much different than 2016 for Donald Trump and the top of the ticket, but go under the hood and see that this November expedited changes that have been happening in the Hoosier State since 2008 and before.
The easiest change to see on the statewide map is Biden’s narrow flip of Tippecanoe County. In winning the county, he is the first Democrat since Barack Obama in 2008 to win the home of Lafayette and Purdue University. Biden carried Tippecanoe 35,017 to 34,581 over Trump.
But traditional manufacturing Democratic bastions in the state from decades past didn’t return, a common trend in next door Ohio as well.
Biden only marginally improved on Clinton’s 2016 performances in Vigo and Delaware counties, which are home to large white working class populations, and sizable state universities in Muncie and Terre Haute.
Indianapolis continues to change at a record pace
While Christina Hale may have fell short in the 5th congressional district by four percent, her and Biden’s performance in the traditionally blood-red north Indianapolis suburbs was impressive.
No congressional district anywhere in the Midwest shifted left quicker than IN-05 from 2012->2020. Mitt Romney won the district by 17 points in 2012 and Trump won it by 12 percent in 2016 before being held to a two percent, plurality victory there in 2020.
The 5th district includes all of Hamilton County and a large part of far north Indianapolis in Marion County. Carmel and Fishers are the wealthiest towns in the entire state, and also the most educated. Both flipped to Biden in 2020.
Carmel voted for the President-elect by 4%, Fishers went to him by 1%. Hamilton was the only county where Biden outdid Joe Donnelly’s 2018 performance in the US Senate race. Donnelly lost Hamilton by eight percent compared to Biden’s seven percent.
What’s causing all this? Growth is a large factor. Fishers passed Merrillville in Lake County as Indiana’s largest town last decade. Democrats are also winning larger and larger amounts of higher educated white voters. Hamilton and Boone counties, as well as northern Indianapolis are full of these types.
In Evansville and Fort Wayne and Lousiville too
Allen, Floyd and Vanderburgh counties are not immune from these national suburban trends either.
Biden improved on Obama’s 2012 performance in all three of these counties. In Allen, did hid six percent better. In Vanderburgh, he did a percentage point better. Of course, none of these shifts were anywhere near as large as Hamilton or Boone’s 20-plus percent movement in this time-frame, they’re still significant.
Gains in Allen County are particularly good news for Dems going into the next decade, as they look to compete for more state representative races in the Fort Wayne metro, where they only currently control one safe seat.
Only 13 of Indiana’s 92 counties have moved left between the 2012 and 2020 presidential elections: Hamilton, Boone, Hendricks, Monroe, Allen, Johnson, Tippecanoe, Hancock, St. Joseph, Kosciusko, Floyd, Marion and Vanderburgh.
All of these counties are more educated and wealthy than the state average. Every single one is currently growing quicker than the state average. Any potential successful statewide coalition for Indiana Democrats must rely on the growing support from these educated, growing communities.
Alarm bells in The Region
Beyond losing two freshman state representatives in Chris Chyung (D-15) and Lisa Beck (D-19), Democratic vote share fell off by over five percent throughout Lake County.
Trump became the first Republican nominee in decades to win Lake Station. He was also within five percent in both Hobart and Highland. Trump didn’t win any of Hammond’s dozens of precincts, but he still captured over 30 percent of the vote citywide fueled by the growth in Latino support he received nationwide. This helped him capture Lake Station as well.
Trump also grew already-large margins in Cedar Lake and Lowell to larger margins than he did in 2016. He narrowly improved in Gary, which he still lost by over 21,000 votes (only 23,600 were cast there).
In NW Indiana’s urban core of Gary, East Chicago, Hammond and Whiting, turnout was just hovering around 50%, In many Gary precincts turnout was lower as a percentage than even the 2018 midterm.
Biden, for his part, was able to slow this bleeding by improving very slightly on 2016 numbers in Crown Point, Saint John and Schererville.
Munster was where Biden’s biggest gains in Lake County occurred, more than doubling Clinton’s four point margin there in 2016 to over nine percent.
Democrats nominated a new Congressman for IN-01 which covers all of Lake, Porter and part of LaPorte County in former North Township Trustee Frank Mrvan (D-Highland) after being served for nearly 40 years by Pete Visclosky (D-Gary), who became a top-ranking member of an appropriations committee while being a backbencher on the floor.
Mrvan won by 16 points, Biden only won the 1st District by 10, which is a three percent decrease on Clinton’s 13 percent margin in 2016. Mrvan outran Biden all over NW Indiana, but particularly in North Twp. where he outperformed Biden by several percentage points.
The district also contains all of Porter and half of LaPorte County. Porter is one of the most interesting counties in that half of it is moving left and half is moving right.
Biden won the county seat of Valparaiso by over six percent, which is the largest margin by a Democrat in the city since 2008. He also narrowly captured back Chesterton. The President-elect expanded Democratic margins in the beach-side towns of Ogden Dunes, Beverly Shores and even flipped Long Beach in LaPorte County, which is one of the wealthiest towns in the entire state.
However, Trump’s gains with WWC and Latino voters were evident in Burns Harbor, Pines, Portage and Porter, where Trump improved on 2016 numbers. He also did so in the south of the county, in the rural small towns of Kouts and Hebron.
What’s it all mean?
Hoosier Democrats have a long way back to relevancy despite the small gains made by Biden compared to 2016. Never in modern history has the party been so far from control of any statewide office. No Democrat has lost a statewide race by less than five points, let alone won, since 2012.
Woody Myers lost to incumbent governor Eric Holcomb by over 24 percent, the largest margin in any gubernatorial race held in Indiana since Evan Bayh defeated Linley Pearson by 25.1 percent in 1992. It’s also the largest margin of victory by a Republican gubernatorial candidate in the state’s history.
Democrats’ quickest path back to relevancy statewide runs through the suburbs and increasing urban core turnout in NW Indiana and in smaller cities with sizable minority populations (Kokomo, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Evansville, Muncie, Anderson), as well as in central Indianapolis.
