Briggs: Trump is leading Indiana Republicans to a dangerous place

Six years after Mike Braun came out on top in Indiana's first Trumpian Idol contest and won election to the U.S. Senate, he has coasted to the Republican nomination for governor.

It shouldn't have been quite so easy. On paper, Braun faced one of the most competitive statewide fields in Indiana history. At least three Republican contenders — Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, Brad Chambers and Eric Doden — had plausible cases to make for being stronger candidates than Braun.

Braun is an uninspiring U.S. senator who ran an uninspiring gubernatorial campaign. That turned out to be good enough because Braun had what he needed: name identification and former president Donald Trump's endorsement. That's probably going to be good enough for him to win in November, too.

Braun's competitors, meanwhile, never distinguished themselves to a Republican electorate beholden to Trump. They ran vaguely hybrid campaigns anchored to time-tested establishment Republican values while sort of appealing to Trump fans, or at least trying not offending them, but never really making headway.

The lifeless state of this race is a warning sign for Indiana Republicans.

It will be easy for Republicans to brush aside this disappointing contest and console themselves with yet another year of (probable) general election victories up and down the ballot. The state Democratic Party is far weaker, so Republicans can get away with listless campaigns, at least for a while.

Establishment Republicans can even feel good about how long it's taking MAGA to smother the party's identity in Indiana compared to other places. After all, moderate Gov. Eric Holcomb has remained relatively popular throughout the Trump era and Republican Sen. Todd Young is among few prominent Republicans anywhere to remain on solid footing while openly defying the former president.

Still, this gubernatorial primary shows Trump is leading Indiana Republicans to a dangerous place. Trump is creating a real-life version of Plato's allegory of the cave, where otherwise strong Republican candidates operate as prisoners unsure of whether, or how, to acknowledge the existence of an outside world to their fellow captives.

Despite only exerting a passive influence over Indiana in this cycle, Trump's shadow diminished candidates to shells of what they might have been in another era.

Crouch, long respected as a skilled administrator, regressed to talking about pronouns and wokeness. Chambers, who many Central Indiana leaders put their hope in as the best candidate, never seemed sure what he was allowed to say in this bizarro political environment. They are lesser figures for having taken part in this "campaign about nothing," as Republican Pete Seat called it in Politico.

Polling might recommend candidates pound away on soul-sucking campaigns of border, border, border. Republicans across Indiana just yawned, though, showing their restlessness with more than 100,000 votes for zombie presidential candidate Nikki Haley.

If you squint, you can see a post-Trump future up for grabs.

As Trump likely (though by no means definitely) heads to the November ballot for the final time, the establishment wing of the Indiana Republican Party Indiana needs to find a new playbook or risk handing the keys over to MAGA acolytes such as Todd Rokita, Diego Morales and Micah Beckwith.

Braun, Indiana's most successful Trumpist, just shredded a crop of well-qualified gubernatorial candidates without breaking a sweat. He had undeniable advantages: the name ID, the Trump endorsement and a crowded field dividing the anti-Braun vote. His opponents couldn't have changed those things.

In a race that topped $40 million in spending, though, Braun's opponents failed at the tasks they could control, including the most basic act of campaigning, a failure that should keep establishment Republicans up at night as they consider where they go from here.

They have no idea how to talk to normal people.

Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or [email protected]. Follow him on X and Threads at @JamesEBriggs.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Mike Braun's shredding of primary field reveals Republican weakness