Indiana primaries 2024: Spartz survives, big spenders prevail

538 tracked several establishment-versus-insurgent GOP primaries.

Tuesday saw the resolution of several major Republican primaries in Indiana: Voters selected the men who will likely become the state’s next U.S. senator and governor, and three open U.S. House seats were the canvas for fierce primary battles between the establishment and populist wings of the GOP. A maverick Republican incumbent also successfully defended her seat after waffling over her decision to seek reelection.

538 reporters and contributors broke down the election results as they came in with live updates, analysis and commentary. Read our full live blog below.


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Republicans likely won’t nominate a woman for Governor

Right now there are more women serving as governors than at any other time — but it's just 12. Of those 12, only four are Republican — Noem of South Dakota, Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, Ivey of Alabama and Reynolds of Iowa.

Looks like Republicans probably won’t be adding another in Crouch. Crouch was in a good position, too, as the current lieutenant governor of the state. One reason women struggle to win elections at that level is their lack of access to the pipeline. But that pipeline obviously isn't a guarantee.

—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor


Associated Press projects Braun the winner in GOP gubernatorial primary

The AP has projected the Republican primary in the Indiana governor’s race for Braun, who will likely win the general election in November. ABC News is not reporting a projection in the race yet, but Braun is ahead with 38 percent of the vote with about 15 percent of the expected vote reporting.

—Monica Potts, 538


Shreve’s support is both deep and broad

Yeah, Jacob, and according to The New York Times’s map of the results in Indiana’s 6th, Shreve is doing quite well in the district’s non-Indianapolis counties. That’s a good sign for Shreve and a bad sign for Carrier because Shreve is from Indianapolis, while Carrier is not; if Carrier is going to win, he probably needs to do better in those counties. Furthermore, Shreve is doing much better in those counties than his Indianapolis neighbor, Speedy. We don’t yet know how Indianapolis’s Marion County voted, but Speedy will need to have crushed it there if he is going to overcome Shreve’s advantage in the outlying counties.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Polls are now closed everywhere in Indiana

Most of Indiana's polls closed at 6 p.m. Eastern, but two parts of the state are in the Central Time Zone and just had their polls close at 7 p.m. Eastern: the northwestern corner of the state (Chicago metro/areas around Gary) and the southwestern corner (Evansville).

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538


A classic establishment-insurgent battle in Indiana’s 6th

In the safely Republican 6th District, Rep. Greg Pence — who, like his brother Mike, is conservative but not angry about it — is stepping aside, and it's very much an open question whether he'll be replaced by a moderate or a hardliner.

Former Indianapolis City-County Councilor Jefferson Shreve, the owner of a successful storage company, is the top fundraiser in the GOP primary thanks to a $4.5 million loan to his own campaign — more than his six opponents have raised combined. But wealthy state Rep. Mike Speedy has also loaned himself $1.3 million and he's using it to remind voters of the moderate positions, like supporting gun control, that Shreve took last year during his failed bid for mayor of Indianapolis (a significantly bluer constituency than the 6th District). To underscore the ideological fault lines of the primary: Shreve has the endorsement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while Speedy is backed by the tea party group Americans for Prosperity and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

No other active candidate in the race has raised more than $200,000 except businessman Jamison Carrier, who raised the most from actual donors ($115,000) in addition to a $750,000 self-loan. There's a chance that Carrier sneaks up the middle between the two front-runners, as he's the only one of the three from a part of the district that's not Indianapolis, which accounted for just 23 percent of the Trump vote in the district in 2020, according to Daily Kos Elections. There's no polling here, though, so it's hard to know whether Carrier's geographic advantage will erase Shreve's and Speedy's financial edge.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538