Indiana Republican Party

The Indiana Republican Party is the affiliate of the United States Republican Party in the state of Indiana. The chairman of the Indiana Republican State Committee is Lana Keesling.

It is currently the dominant party in the state, controlling all statewide executive offices, both of the state's U.S. Senate seats, seven of its nine U.S. House seats, and supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature.

History

Republicans have dominated Indiana politics for most of its history, although Democrats did occasionally do very well in some parts of the state government from the 1960s to the early 2000s. At the presidential level, the state is also reliably Republican; the state has voted Democratic only five times since 1892, all of which occurred amidst national Democratic landslides. In fact, no Republican has won the presidency without carrying Indiana since 1876, when Democrat Samuel Tilden very narrowly carried the state amidst an extremely close (and still contested) national election.

In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln won all of Indiana's thirteen electoral votes with 51.09% of the popular vote. When the American Civil War broke out, Indiana had a strong, pro-South Democratic Party in the Indiana General Assembly that, for the most part, claimed to be pro-Union but anti-abolition. Governor Oliver P. Morton (elected 1861), had a close relationship with Lincoln, who called him the "shrewdest person I know". At the 1862 Loyal War Governors Conference in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Morton put his full support behind Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

A backlash followed the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, leading to a defeat of Republicans in the 1862 midterm elections. Morton feared that the Democratic majority in the General Assembly would be sympathetic to the Confederacy, so he began to take steps to circumvent the General Assembly and mobilize Indiana in the war effort. When Morton stepped beyond the scope of his constitutional powers by establishing a state arsenal, the Democratic legislature moved to switch command of the militia from the Governor to the General Assembly. Fearing that with control of the militia, the Democrats would attempt to secede from the Union, Morton helped Republican legislators to flee to Kentucky and prevent a quorum. Unable to pass appropriations bills, the paralyzed government of Indiana teetered on bankruptcy until Morton once again stepped out of the scope of his powers and acquired millions of dollars in federal and private loans to keep the government running, support Indiana's role in the war effort, and circumvent the Democratic Assembly.

For the remainder of the Civil War, Morton made efforts to keep Indiana secure by suppressing elements he saw as anti-union or sympathetic to the South. The searches, arrests, and even disruption of the Democratic State Convention in what would later be called the Battle of Pogue's Run earned Morton much criticism and was called a "dictator" and "underhanded mobster". As the war ended and the Republican Party received an overwhelming majority in the government, Morton's questionable conduct during the war was moot and he continued to serve a second term in the US Senate until 1877.

The party's darkest stain was after World War I, following a rush of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe into the United States. By this period of time, the Indiana Republican Party, like the Republican Party elsewhere, had given up its former goal of African-American rights. Unlike the first Ku Klux Klan that rose in the South during the Reconstruction era to terrorize both white and black Republicans, the new Klan that started in Georgia in 1915 was a highly nativist organization. Staunchly anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, antisemitic, and prejudiced against African Americans, the new Klan spread into Indiana in the 1920s under Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson. The second KKK was almost exclusively Republican in Midwestern states such as Indiana as well as in northern and western states such as Maine and Colorado, although the KKK remained exclusively Democratic in the South. Under Stephenson's leadership, the Klan flourished in Indiana and took over both the Governor's Office and much of the Republican Party in the General Assembly. With over 250,000 white males (approximately forty-percent of Indiana's population) paying Klan dues in Indiana, Stephenson amassed a fortune estimated from two to five million dollars. In 1922. the Klan-dominated General Assembly passed a Klan Day in the Indiana State Fair, but Republican Governor Warren T. McCray vetoed the bill, earning the ire of Stephenson and the Klan.

In the 1924 Republican primary elections in Indiana, almost all candidates nominated for statewide office were Klansmen. One African-American newspaper said, "the Ku Klux Klan has captured boot and breeches, the Republican party in Indiana and have icturned what has been historically an organization of constitutional freedom into an agency for the promotion of religious and racial hate. Nobody now denies the Ku Klux Klan is the dominating power in Indiana Republican politics. In fact, the Republican party exists in Indiana today only in name. Its place has been usurped by the Klan purposes and leadership and issues." Most Indiana blacks in 1924 cast their first-ever ballot for the Democratic Party, which had passed a resolution denouncing the KKK in its platform, though without mentioning the Klan by name. Blacks in other areas of the United States, in contrast, generally remained Republican until the 1930s. Despite the influx of blacks into the Democratic party, Klansmen won most of the Indiana legislature and most statewide offices in the November 1924 general elections. However, once in office, the Klan-controlled legislature passed little to no anti-black, anti-Jewish, or anti-Catholic legislation.

The peak of the Klan's power and influence was in the early 1920s, when the Klan had Governor McCray arrested, imprisoned, and thrown out of office on a charge of mail fraud. Republican Edward Jackson, a KKK member was elected in the 1924 election. Stephenson became infamous for his words "I am the law in Indiana."

The Klan quickly fell apart under the revelation that Stephenson had abducted, raped, and murdered a young woman. More of a populist organization that believed in the Klan's image of defending the race and "Protestant Womanhood," the Klan's power and influence in both Indiana and its politics dissolved quickly. Governor Jackson refused to pardon his old ally Stephenson, so Stephenson retaliated from prison by revealing evidence that Jackson had received bribes from the Klan. Despite calls for his resignation for being associated with the Klan, Jackson's trial resulted in a hung jury.

Platform

The 2012 party platform contains the party's official stances on key issues, economic, political and social.

The first section of the platform states that the liberties guaranteed to us in the Constitution and Bill of Rights must be protected from erosion by government. The platform then states a commitment to "protecting and defending our U.S. and Indiana Constitutions," "fiscal responsibility," "federalism," "strong family structures," "individual responsibility," "personal liberty and freedom," "free and fair elections" and "volunteerism."

The Indiana GOP concurs with the current Indiana law that "childbirth is preferred, encouraged, and supported over abortion."

The party also believes that "strong families are the foundation of virtue and that such families bring forth citizens capable of self-government as well as properly motivated public servants so essential for a successful republic."

It stands by the national Republican Party that "limited government truly is good government" and states that the proper role of government is to get out of the way of entrepreneurs and job creators.

The party also supports paying down debt, balancing budgets, and lowering taxes coupled with a simplified tax code.

The Indiana Republican Party supports the use of Hoosier resources, including expanded clean coal technology, as a way to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

The platform states the belief of Indiana Republicans that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced with free market solutions.

One amendment was approved and added at the 2012 State Convention; "The Indiana Republican Party shall seek transparency, accountability and fairness in all levels of government, including a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve."

Current Indiana Republican officeholders

The Indiana Republican Party controls both U.S. Senate seats and seven of nine U.S. House seats. Republicans control all seven of the seven statewide constitutional offices. The party currently hold a majority in both the Indiana House of Representatives and the Indiana Senate.

Federal officials

U.S. Senate

File:Senator Todd Young official portrait.jpg, Senior U.S. Senator
File:Sen. Jim Banks official Senate photo, 119th Congress (HR).jpg, Junior U.S. Senator

U.S. House of Representatives

Statewide officials

*Governor: Mike Braun
*Lieutenant Governor: Micah Beckwith
*Attorney General: Todd Rokita
* Secretary of State: Diego Morales
*Treasurer: Daniel Elliott
*Auditor: Elise Nieshalla

State party chairmen since 1961

*Thomas A. Gallmeyer (1961–1962)
*H. Dale Brown (1962–1963)
*Robert N. Stewart (1963–1965)
*Charles O. Hendricks (1965–1967)
*Buena Chaney (1967–1970)
*John K. Snyder (1970–1972)
*James T. Neal (1972–1973)
*Thomas S. Milligan (1973–1977)
*Bruce B. Melchert (1977–1981)
*Gordon K. Durnil (1981–1989)
*Virgil D. Scheidt (1989)
*Keith Luse (1989–1991)
*Rexford C. Early (1991–1993)
* Al Hubbard (1993–1994)
*Mike McDaniel (1995–2002)
*Jim Kittle (2002–2006)
* Murray Clark (2006–2010)
*Eric Holcomb (2010–2013)
* Tim Berry (2013–2015)
* Jeff Cardwell (2015–2017)
*Kyle Hupfer (2017–2023)
*Anne Hathaway (2023–2024)
* Randy Head (2024)
*Lana Keesling (2025–present)

Electoral history

Gubernatorial

Footnotes

Further reading

* Charles Zimmerman, "The Origin and Rise of the Republican Party in Indiana from 1854 to 1860," ''Indiana Magazine of History,'' Part 1: vol. 13, no. 3 (Sept. 1917), pp. 211–269; Part 2: vol. 13, no. 4 (Dec. 1917), pp. 349–412
Part 1
an
Part 2
In JSTOR.

External links

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{{Republican Party

Indiana Republicans
Republican
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