McCormick faces uphill battle in race for Indiana governor
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Inside a rustic bar in her hometown of New Castle, Jennifer McCormick, the former Republican state superintendent of public instruction who switched to the Democratic Party in 2021, announced Thursday that she will run for governor, becoming the first Democrat to enter the race.
In a speech announcing her candidacy, McCormick, 53, touched on her roots in rural Henry County and voiced concerns about divisive politics at the Indiana Statehouse, the state of Indiana’s infrastructure and the plight of public education.
McCormick, who formed an exploratory committee for governor late last year, has a long road ahead of her in a deeply red state that hasn’t elected a Democratic official to statewide office since 2012 or as governor since 2000. She’s spent the last several months traveling the state and speaking at Democratic and public education advocacy events.
“Everywhere I visit, no matter where I go, one thing is clear: Hoosiers do not recognize the out-of-touch divisiveness coming out of the Statehouse,” McCormick told reporters gathered at Twin Lions, a former gymnasium that was converted to a wine bar that she invoked as a symbol of revitalization efforts happening in towns and cities across the state.
In a campaign video, McCormick also touched on her roots in New Castle, a city of 17,000 that was once home to a booming Chrysler factory, and criticized state lawmakers for passing an abortion ban, repealing the state’s handgun permit requirement despite opposition from state police and keeping Indiana’s gasoline taxes among the highest in the country.
With no other Democrat expressing interest in the race, McCormick appears to have an easy path to a primary victory, though she’ll face a well-funded GOP candidate in the 2024 election.
On the Republican side, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, U.S. Sen. Mike Braun and Fort Wayne businessman Eric Doden have already amassed millions of dollars for their respective gubernatorial campaigns to replace Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, who can’t seek a third term due to term limits.
McCormick’s exploratory campaign account reported about $40,000 in cash as of Dec. 31.
By law, statewide candidates aren’t allowed to fundraise during the legislative session, which ended April 27.
A former special education and language arts teacher, McCormick worked her way up in the Yorktown school district near Muncie, becoming an elementary school principal and school superintendent before running for statewide office.
McCormick was elected to become the Indiana superintendent of public instruction in 2016 after successfully defeating Democrat Glenda Ritz, who at the time was the only Democratic statewide elected official.
During her 2016 campaign, McCormick criticized Ritz, who often clashed with then-Gov. Mike Pence and his appointees on the Indiana State Board of Education over the direction of education policy in the state.
“The politics have got to be left out of it,” McCormick said at the time. “It’s time to move forward. It’s time to communicate and collaborate and play nice.”
But after getting elected, McCormick found herself in many of the same squabbles, as Holcomb, Republican legislators and education policymakers emphasized standardizing testing to rate schools and teachers and directed more funding to charter schools and private schools that receive taxpayer dollars through the state’s voucher program.
The Republican supermajority in the Indiana legislature responded in 2019 by changing the office to an appointed position, ensuring that McCormick would be the last publicly elected education chief.
She opted not to seek a second term, and in 2020, she openly criticized Holcomb and campaigned for his Democratic challenger Woody Myers.
Indiana Republicans were quick to denounce McCormick’s decision to run.
“With her campaign launch today, Democrat Jennifer McCormick has decided to continue her well-known streak of misleading Hoosiers. But they have come to know that’s just who she is—someone who will say or do anything to get elected,” Indiana GOP chair Kyle Hupfer said in a statement.
When asked how she intended to court support from centrists and members of her former party, McCormick said Hoosiers were ready for change and “common sense and bipartisanship.”
McCormick also vowed to visit all 92 counties, a strategy employed by Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott in his failed run for U.S. Senate in 2022 in which he lost badly to incumbent Republican Sen. Todd Young.
“It’s not the total plan, but obviously you’ve got to visit all 92 counties because all 92 counties have voices that deserve to be heard,” McCormick said. “But we also have to have a path to victory. We have to have an amazing team. We have to have a ground operation that has not been seen in Indiana from the Democratic Party in some time.”