Governor Pence’s Replacement Announced

Since the current Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, is running as Vice-President on the Republican ticket with Donald Trump, he is unable to run for re-election as Governor. A replacement candidate needed to be found.

22 members of the Indiana Republican State Committee held a meeting earlier this week to determine who would be the Republican candidate for Governor this year.The choice included big names, such as Lieutenant Governor Eric Holcomb, US Representative Susan Brooks, US Representative Todd Rokita and State Senator Jim Tomes.

The meeting lasted a few hours and the committee announced that Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb will be the candidate this election cycle. The announcement did not surprise many since Governor Pence endorsed Holcomb last week. Holcomb has not named a running mate for Lieutenant Governor yet, but he will be running against:

• John Gregg (Democrat) with Christina Hale
• Rex Bell (Libertarian) with Karl Tatgenhorst
• Adam Adkins (Write-in) – no running mate named at this time
• Christopher Stried (Write-in) – no running mate named at this time

Gregg also ran in 2012 against Pence. Pence narrowly won that election with 49.5% of the vote (Gregg had 46.6% and Libertarian candidate Rupert Boneham had 4%). Polls from earlier this year show that Pence and Gregg were nearly tied, but Pence did have a slightly lead in May. It is unclear how close Holcomb and Gregg are at this time.

Brooks and Rokita both had to remove their names from the ballots for the US House of Representatives, but both intend to seek re-election in their districts. Both are still eligible to be placed on the ballot in November.