Did Indiana Republicans vote for challenger Richard Mourdock or against incumbent Richard Lugar in their primary election for a U.S. Senate seat?It’s hard to tell, because voters don’t have to give a reason.Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-3rd, will face no challenge from within the Republican Party in his first bid for re-election.
What’s more, the highest-profile candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination withdrew from the race Friday.
David Kolbe’s announcement that he won’t run – two weeks after the Warsaw attorney filed his declaration of candidacy – left six people in the 3rd District Democratic field when the filing deadline passed Friday.
Stutzman, a LaGrange County farmer and former state lawmaker, won election to an open seat in 2010 after the resignation of longtime Republican Rep. Mark Souder.
The fact that Stutzman doesn’t have an opponent in the May 8 GOP primary election “shows that people like Marlin,” said Tim Harris, Stutzman’s chief of staff. “That’s what I hear all the time from people – whether they agree or disagree with him, they like him personally.”
Harris added: “We’ve worked very, very hard to have Marlin all over the district as much as we can, giving people the opportunity to meet him. That’s a good strategy, and we’ll continue to do that.”
Through the end of 2011, Stutzman’s campaign had raised $427,000 and had more than $183,000 in cash on hand.
Kolbe is a former Republican prosecutor for Kosciusko County. He said in a statement about his decision to withdraw from the race: “I have reassessed my capacity to engage in the immense work necessary in such a campaign. Personal and family challenges have arisen which have led to this reassessment.”
Reached by phone, Kolbe said he had submitted paperwork with the secretary of state to keep his name off the May 8 ballot.
“It is definitely a family urgency,” he said, preferring not to give details.
“I will do what I can from the sidelines” to help the Democratic Party, he added.
After Kolbe’s departure, the Democratic field consists of:
•Kevin R. Boyd, a Presbyterian minister who sought the Democratic congressional nomination in 2006 and was the Democratic candidate for the 1st District seat on the Fort Wayne City Council in 2007.
•Stephen G. Hope, a retired carpenter from Leo-Cedarville who ran for Congress in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
•Justin Kuhnle. He reportedly is an IPFW student.
•John Forrest Roberson, a former Fort Wayne police officer who was fired for disciplinary reasons.
•Tommy A. Schrader, who won a Democratic at-large nomination for the Fort Wayne City Council in 2011. The Allen County Election Board later ruled that Schrader was ineligible to run because he had voted the same year in a municipal election in Green Bay, Wis.
•David Sowards, a Fort Wayne novelist and freelance writer who formerly worked at the General Motors truck assembly plant in southwest Allen County.
The Indiana Democratic Party does not plan to endorse a candidate in the 3rd District, according to Ben Ray, the party’s press secretary.
The Indiana General Assembly redrew the state’s nine congressional districts last year to account for population changes in the 2010 census. The 3rd District includes Allen, Adams, DeKalb, Huntington, Jay, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wells and Whitely counties and parts of Blackford and Kosciusko counties.
The 5th and 6th congressional districts formerly included parts of northeast Indiana.
Eight Republicans – including former U.S. District Attorney and Fort Wayne native Susan Brooks and former U.S. Rep. David McIntosh, who grew up in Kendallville – and two Democrats filed to run in the 5th District primaries. Rep. Dan Burton, R-5th, who has been in Congress since 1983, is not seeking re-election.
Eight Republicans and five Democrats filed in the 6th District. Rep. Mike Pence, a congressman since 2001, is running for governor.
Three candidates filed for U.S. Senate: Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in the Republican primary and Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-2nd, in the Democratic primary.
