Live Indiana Governor Election Results 2024
CHICAGO - Republican Mike Braun won the Indiana governor’s race Tuesday, defeating Democrat Jennifer McCormick, a former Republican who split with the party after serving as the state’s schools superintendent.
The victory by Braun, a U.S. senator who’s the wealthy founder of a national auto parts distribution business, extends the GOP's 20-year-hold on the state’s top office in deep red Indiana.
Braun, 70, will succeed outgoing Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, who could not seek a third term because of term limits. Braun opted not to seek reelection to a second term in the Senate so he could run for governor. He won the GOP’s six-way May primary election to succeed Holcomb with about 40% of the vote.
Braun told supporters at his victory celebration that unlike in the U.S. Senate, where he has been one of 100 senators, as Indiana’s next governor he will have an executive job that’s "less ideological" and is "more about running something."
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He said his goal is to "make Indiana a place where our kids and grandkids want to move back to."
"We’re going to take Indiana to places we’ve never seen before," Braun said to chants of "I like Mike"! I like Mike!"
"When you’re an entrepreneur by trade generally if you survive, you know how to pick the best fork in the road and there are many of them. And to me it was coming back to lead our state where you can set the agenda, where you’re going to get along with the Legislature. Imagine what you can do with that," he added.
Braun quickly became the frontrunner in the race, bolstered by several advantages: name recognition, money and former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Braun’s running mate, ultra-conservative Christian pastor Micah Beckwith, wasn’t his choice for the lieutenant governor’s post. Braun had endorsed state Rep. Julie McGuire for his running mate when he became the GOP nominee for governor.
While Indiana delegates usually back the nominee’s chosen running mate without a challenge, Beckwith was chosen by party delegates at the state Republican Party convention in June after he had lobbied delegates for a year to win the nomination.
Beckwith, who promotes uncompromising positions on abortion, gender and sexuality, cohosts a "Jesus, Sex and Politics" podcast, has courted controversy with some of his comments.
Republicans have controlled Indiana’s governor’s office since Mitch Daniels defeated the late Democrat Joe Kernan in 2004. And Democrats haven’t won a statewide office in Indiana since 2012, when Glenda Ritz won election as the state’s schools superintendent and Democrat Joe Donnelly won a U.S. Senate seat.
McCormick, then a Republican, defeated Ritz for the schools chief post in 2016 after pledging better relationships with Republican Statehouse leaders following numerous policy clashes between Ritz, then-Gov. Mike Pence and top GOP lawmakers.
But McCormick split from the GOP over education policy and changed her party affiliation to Democrat after her term ended in early 2021.
McCormick’s running mate was Terry Goodin, a Democrat who served in the Indiana House from 2000 to 2020. Those 20 years were marked by conservative votes against key Democratic issues, including abortion and same-sex marriage, but Goodin has apologized for those votes and promised that he’s changed his mind.
Braun and McCormick were joined in the governor’s race by Libertarian Donald Rainwater.
In the state’s attorney general’s race, Republican incumbent Todd Rokita won a second term Tuesday, defeating Democrat Destiny Wells, a lawyer and Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who ran unsuccessfully for Indiana secretary of state in 2022. Rokita is a conservative former congressman.
The Candidates
U.S. Sen. Mike Braun - Republican nominee
Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Braun, who is leaving the Senate after one term, had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump and campaigned largely on national issues such as immigration.
Braun, the 68-year-old founder of a national auto parts distribution business, has name recognition and money; his campaign spent over $6 million in 2024, according to the latest summary report.
Braun would have been heavily favored to win a second Senate term in 2024 from Republican-dominated Indiana after fueling his successful 2018 Senate campaign with more than $11 million in personal loans to go from being a little-known businessman to unseating Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly.
Braun campaigned in 2018 as a strong supporter of then-President Trump and has often aligned himself closely with U.S. Senate Republicans’ most conservative members while bemoaning the Senate’s deliberative pace. He supported the failed attempt by Florida Sen. Rick Scott this month to unseat Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, saying in a statement that "Hoosier conservative Republicans are sick and tired of the status quo."
Braun had announced he would vote against accepting Electoral College votes from some states Democrat Joe Biden won in the 2020 election over Trump. But he changed his mind after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, saying the violence "changed things drastically" and that he would "vote to get this ugly day behind us."
He split with fellow Indiana Republicans, publicly denouncing Holcomb’s decision in 2022 to veto a GOP-backed bill banning transgender girls from competing in Indiana girls sports teams.
Braun also split from Indiana GOP Sen. Todd Young, who won reelection in November 2022, by voting against a bill protecting same-sex and interracial marriages across the country. Braun told reporters that the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong with its 1967 decision legalizing interracial marriage nationwide, while later saying he misunderstood the question.
A day after winning the primary election on May 7 with about 40% of the votes, Braun endorsed state Rep. Julie McGuire for his running mate. Indiana delegates usually back the nominee’s chosen running mate without a challenge.
Trump made a surprise endorsement for McGuire ahead of the convention, indicating ultra-conservative Christian pastor Micah Beckwith’s campaign had some teeth.
But during the state Republican Party convention, party delegates instead chose Beckwith, who received the votes of 891 delegates, while McGuire got 828 votes.
Beckwith, who promotes uncompromising positions on abortion, gender and sexuality and cohosts his "Jesus, Sex and Politics" podcast, lobbied delegates for a year to win the nomination at the convention.
Beckwith, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress from central Indiana in 2020, actively campaigned for lieutenant governor for a year, courting delegates months ahead of the convention. He is known for his far-right stances on gender, sexuality and abortion. He cast himself as a political outsider who would keep the governor’s office in check, limit property taxes and oppose school efforts to support the LGBTQ+ community.
Jennifer McCormick - Democratic nominee
Former Indiana state schools Superintendent Jennifer McCormick launched a 2024 campaign for governor in May, taking on the daunting goal of flipping the state’s top office from Republican to Democrat after making the same political switch herself.
McCormick broke with Statehouse Republicans over education policy in the years after her successful 2016 campaign as the GOP candidate for state schools chief. She changed her party affiliation after her term ended in early 2021 and has traveled the state speaking at Democratic and public school advocacy events.
Prior to her campaign announcement, McCormick criticized the Republican-controlled Legislature for what she said was a lack of support for traditional public schools and for pushing a national conservative agenda on social issues.
In her campaign launch video, she denounced Statehouse Republicans for pushing "extreme ideas," invoking topics such as the statewide abortion ban and the repeal of the state’s handgun permit requirement approved last year, while keeping Indiana’s gasoline taxes among the highest in the country.
McCormick, 53, of New Castle, was a special education and language arts teacher before becoming an elementary school principal, then superintendent of the Yorktown school district near Muncie ahead of her first political campaign for state superintendent of public instruction.
As a Republican, she defeated Democratic incumbent Glenda Ritz in 2016 after pledging better relationships with Republican Statehouse leaders following numerous policy clashes between Ritz, then-Gov. Mike Pence and top GOP lawmakers.
But McCormick soon faced open disputes with Holcomb and Republican legislators on issues including the use of standardized testing to rate schools and teachers, as well as her support for increased scrutiny of charter schools and private schools that receive taxpayer money through the state’s voucher program.
She decided against seeking reelection and fully broke with Republicans by endorsing several Democrats in the 2020 elections, including gubernatorial candidate Woody Myers, who lost badly to Holcomb.
McCormick’s three-minute announcement video never describes her as a Democrat, but said she was confident she could secure support among party members.
McCormick tapped former state lawmaker Terry Goodin, an Indiana House Democrat from 2000 to 2020, as her running mate in June. Goodin officially won the nomination with an overwhelming number of delegates at the state convention in July.
But his record will leave voters questioning his Democratic bona fides.
Goodin spent much of his introductory speech apologizing for past votes against abortion and same-sex marriage and promising he’s changed his mind.
In his remarks to reporters, Goodin took the issue head on, explaining he’s dropped positions that ran counter to core Democratic values, including access to abortion, a top-of-mind issue for voters since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision two years ago overturned the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing the procedure.
Goodin, like McCormick a former teacher and educational administrator, denounced Dobbs as "an all-out assault on personal freedoms," then pivoted and said that his 2011 vote against same-sex marriage "dehumanized, demeaned thousands of Hoosiers. I am sorry for the hurt that I caused so many." Indiana legalized same-sex marriage in 2014.
McCormick said many voters would be able to relate to Goodin’s change of heart.
Any Democrat will face substantial challenges to capturing the governor’s office. Republicans have dominated the state, winning five straight governor elections since 2004. The last time a Democrat won any statewide race was in 2012.
Donald Rainwater - Libertarian nominee
Donald Rainwater will also appear on the ballot as the Libertarian nominee.