Indiana

2012

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

I know 2012 is a still a ways off, but let’s face it.  Indiana House Democrats probably won’t be back until then anyway, so we’ve got plenty of time to look at some other things, like next year’s gubernatorial race.

Of course the heavyweights in the room are Indiana Congressman Mike Pence and former Speaker of the Indiana House John Gregg.  Both sides are making movies that signal they want to spend sometime at 47th and Meridian.  But before they do, both will have to make it through a primary.  I haven’t heard many other names on the Democratic side; however I do know Gregg may face some issues with the more “progressive” wing of his party.  The internal scuttlebutt is that if Gregg does run, he’ll pick former state Health Commissioner and Congressional candidate Dr. Woody Myers as his running mate.  But that’s another blog post for another time.

Meanwhile Pence on the other hand, may find the road to his party nomination with a few challenges as well.  I recently sat down and chatted with some supporters of one of his potential opponents, Indianapolis-area business man Jim Wallace.  They think some recent polling data they’ve done shows that the primary will be tough, but not unwinnable.

They say their polling data shows jobs, the budget and education to be Hoosiers tops priorities while social issues poll less than 5%.  Ironically, social issues don’t register for the 35 and under crowd, however they are extremely important for the 65 and over.  So the target will naturally be the 35-55 group.

I asked about how Wallace would fair in a head to head match up with Pence.  The campaign would not go into exact numbers however they did admit while Pence enjoys a healthy name identification in some places, the further you get away from the 6th Congressional District, the less people know him.  The also say Pence does poorly with women under 65 on the Planned Parenthood funding issue.  Wallace reportedly runs strong in the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts and is apparently within 10 points in the 8th and 9th Districts.  Pence also does well in Marion County.

The Wallace camp also made it a point to tell me that as Hoosiers got to know more about both candidates, the gap narrowed immensely and they did plan to have the money to run a competitive race.  Like I said, this should be interesting.

And by the way, I did ask if their polling revealed anything else about any other candidate, the only bit of information I got was that incumbent Senator Dick Lugar was polling at about 67% with GOP voters, however that was part of the poll was taken just as Richard Mourdock was getting into the race for the U.S. Senate.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on March 28, 2011 (boomark / email).