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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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


Early returns in the 6th District

We’ve gotten a trickle of votes counted in the 6th District, which includes suburbs and rural areas east of Indianapolis. With 15 percent of the expected vote reporting, Jefferson Shreve, who has dipped into his considerable pockets to self fund a bid to the tune of $4.5 million is ahead with 30 percent, while car dealership consultant Jamison Carrier is in second with 24 percent.

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections


Will an incumbent lose in Indiana’s 5th District?

As Meredith alluded to, the GOP primary in the 5th District is competitive today after Spartz decided to seek reelection, but only after a Hamlet rendition of "to run or not to run."

In February 2023, Spartz surprised the political world by announcing that not only would she not run for Indiana's open Senate seat, she also wouldn't seek reelection. She then repeatedly flip-flopped on whether she might reconsider her decision before announcing in February that she would indeed seek reelection, just days before the filing deadline. Spartz's decision upset the plans of the many GOP contenders who'd entered the race in the meantime — 11 candidates (including Spartz) are on the primary ballot.

However, state Rep. Chuck Goodrich looks like a real threat to Spartz. The CEO of an electrical contracting company, Goodrich has self-funded heavily — $4.6 million of the $5.5 million he'd raised as of April 17 — to give himself a significant financial advantage over Spartz, who had only raised $581,000 after barely fundraising throughout 2023. Even with the money she already had in the bank, Spartz has been outspent $4.1 million to $2 million by Goodrich.

Goodrich has emphasized his America First views and attacked Spartz, most notably by casting her as overly supportive of Ukraine in its war against Russia. Spartz is Ukrainian American, and Goodrich has claimed she's been "putting Ukraine first" while using an image of Spartz with Biden after the passage of Ukraine military aid in 2022. However, Spartz's record is more nuanced: She has been critical of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and opposed the most recent round of Ukraine aid that Congress passed in April.

Yet Goodrich's attacks may be working: A late March poll for his campaign by pollster Mark It Red found him almost running even with her, trailing just 33 percent to 30 percent — a change from earlier polls that gave the incumbent a larger lead.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538