The scramble for a new Democratic Senate candidate in Indiana, with the sudden retirement of Sen. Evan Bayh and his expected replacement by the state Democratic Party, has seen a lot of attention focused on some of the state’s Democratic House members — which could in turn set off an additional scramble to fill one of their seats, should they decide to run.
A Democratic source in Indiana filled us in on the possible candidates for the seats of three Dem House members who could conceivably become the new Senate nominee: Joe Donnelly, Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill. (Most speculation has centered on Ellsworth and Hill, though Donnelly is not out of the question, either.) If any of these three were to accept the Democratic nomination for Senate and subsequently vacate their own nominations for the House, the party would go through an internal process to replace them as Congressional candidates.
The Democratic Party precinct chairs within the district, who are elected from each of the state’s election precincts, would meet for a caucus at which they would vote for a new candidate. If more than two people were to run for a seat, and nobody were to win a majority at first, voting would continue until somebody reached 50-percent-plus-one. In this kind of process, different local allegiances and records in office can have a genuine role to play among the hundreds of people voting in the contest. “Needless to say, that is a more interesting process than the state mechanism,” the source said.
So here are the rundowns of possible candidates in each district:
⢠2nd District, represented by Joe Donnelly: St. Joseph County prosector Michael Dvorak; his son, state Rep. Ryan Dvorak, from South Bend; and state Rep. Scott Pelath, from Michigan City.
⢠8th District, represented by Brad Ellsworth: Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel, and former state House Speaker John Gregg.
⢠9th District, represented by Baron Hill: state Rep. Steve Stemler, of Jeffersonville; Peggy Welch, from Bloomington; and Terry Goodin, of Crothersville.
It’s not definite that any of these districts would open up. But if one of them does, supplying a new Democratic nominee for Senate, they would all present competitive open-seat environments, though some more than others. Donnelly’s district voted 54%-45% for Barack Obama in 2008, and 56%-43% for George W. Bush in 2008. Ellsworth’s district voted 51%-47% for John McCain in 2008, and 62%-38% for Bush in 2004. And Hill’s district voted 50%-48% for McCain in 2004, and before that it was 59%-40% for Bush in 2004.
Late Update: This post originally listed Donnelly’s distrist as being the First District, when it is in fact numbered as the Second District.
