Terry's Elections Guide and Predictions: Indiana
IN-02 (Republican-held)
Joe Donnelly (D) 53 - Chris Chocola (R) 47
Chris Chocola, affectionately called "The Count" for breakfast-cereal reasons, won a highly competitive open-seat contest in 2002. He won reelection more easily in 2004, but then-and-current challenger Joe Donnelly is a classic example of a candidate who learned from mistakes in his first run to become a stellar candidate his next time out. Because of the 2004 outcome, this race wasn't on most radar screens for most of the 2006 cycle, but now some pundits believe Donnelly has the best chance of winning of any Democratic candidate in Indiana. As we see below, that's saying quite a bit.
IN-03 (Republican-held)
Mark Souder (R) 54 - Tim Hayhurst (D) 44
This race has tightened over the last few weeks, but I suspect it happened too late for Hayhurst to get significant traction. Maybe in 2008.
IN-07 (Democratic-held)
Julia Carson (D) 52 - Eric Dickerson (R) 48
Dickerson, who has never held the onetime NFL single-season rushing record holder, has somehow turned this into a close race despite receiving virtually no attention outside the district. Apparently Carson is sick and has run a lethargic campaign, and now some polls actually show her behind. I hope and assume Democrats have figured out how to hold this one, but this sounds like something that needs to be resolved for 2008.
IN-08 (Republican-held)
Brad Ellsworth (D) 53 - John Hostettler (R) 46
This is an interesting race. In the aftermath of a series of tornadoes that ravaged the district in 2005, I read a profile of Brad Ellsworth, a local county sheriff who had emerged as a resolute and confident leader when the district badly needed one. The profile said that Ellsworth was exactly the kind of candidate Democrats would love to recruit for 2006, if only Ellsworth were both a Democrat and up for running. The article reached a thrilling conclusion when I discovered, actually, Ellsworth was not only a Democrat but already running for Congress. John Hostettler is an all-star (he was arrested in 2004 for carrying a gun onto a plane and he honestly believes the Democrats' raison d'etre is to fight Christianity) but he has always run curious campaigns: devoid of consultants or fundraising, he somehow uses his legions of supporters for a massive GOTV effort that always pulls him over the top against challengers who everyone assumes have already won. Conventional wisdom holds that this is the year Hostettler is finally going down; I don't know how the polls look compared to earlier cycles but some of them show Ellsworth with pretty substantial leads.
IN-09 (Republican-held)
Baron Hill (D) 50 - Mike Sodrel (R) 49
I saw this race up close during my 2004 tenure across the river in Louisville. Baron Hill is the former three-term congressman here, but after holding off Sodrel in 2002, he lost to Sodrel in 2004 in the closest congressional election in the country. Both campaigns have been well run, but Baron is a stellar campaigner in a Democratic year. The troubles of Mitch Daniels, Indiana's unpopular Republican governor, can't help matters much either. This will still be a close race, but hopefully Baron Hill will win the rubber match.