IN-Gov: GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb has not yet announced if he’ll seek re-election next year, but no one seems to think there’s much of a chance he’ll retire. Between Holcomb and his 2016 running mate, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, the governor has nearly $5 million available, and Morning Consult gave him a 49-22 approval rating for the first quarter of 2019.
Until this week, the only Democrat who had publicly talked about challenging Holcomb in this conservative state is former state Health Commissioner Woody Myers, but state Rep. Karlee Macer is also making her interest known. Macer, who represents a light blue seat in Indianapolis, recently sent out a press release blasting the “culture of corruption and blind governing that has emerged from our decade-long Republican free-for-all.” The aide who sent out the release confirmed to Howey that Macer is “definitely taking under consideration a run for governor.”
A few other Hoosier State Democrats may also be interested. Howey writes that party chair John Zody recently met with former Rep. Baron Hill, 2012 and 2016 nominee John Gregg, and former state Rep. Christina Hale in addition to Myers and Macer. None of this trio have said anything publicly, though Howey says they’ve heard that Hill and Gregg “haven’t ruled out running.”
Hill won a competitive southern Indiana seat in 1998, lost it in 2004, and reclaimed it the following cycle. Hill’s second stint in the House ended after the 2010 GOP wave when he lost re-election to Republican Todd Young, who now serves in the Senate, but he’s remained involved in Indiana Democratic politics. In 2015, Hill expressed interest in running for governor before deciding to seek the open Senate seat. Hill won the 2016 Democratic primary without any opposition, but his campaign against his old rival Young attracted little outside attention and raised a total of just $1.3 million though June, not a very strong sum for a statewide race.
National Democrats were considerably more excited when former Sen. Evan Bayh decided to run for his old seat the following month, and Hill quickly dropped out of the race so Bayh could receive the Democratic nomination for what was ultimately an unsuccessful comeback bid. A few months ago, Hill said he was "reaching out" to potential gubernatorial candidates, but there was no indication he was looking to become one himself.
Gregg, a former speaker of the state House, was Team Blue’s nominee in the 2012 open seat race, and he surprised observers by holding Mike Pence to a 50-47 victory. Gregg sought a rematch with Pence in 2016, but the race changed in the summer when the governor dropped out to become Donald Trump’s running mate. Holcomb, who had only been appointed Pence’s lieutenant governor a few months before, was then selected by state party leaders to take his place as the GOP nominee for governor. Both parties paid far more attention to this race than they had to the Pence-Gregg match four years before, but Holcomb won by a stronger 51-45 margin.
Hale, who was Gregg’s running mate in 2016, didn’t rule out a statewide bid back in January, though Howey said at the time that she’d "long expressed more interest in running in 2024 after a second theoretical Holcomb term," when the incumbent would be term-limited. In February, Hale also didn't say no to a campaign against Rep. Susan Brooks in the 5th Congressional District, but we haven’t heard anything from her since then.