Indiana House Republicans: All In

It’s been said that true success comes not to the person who is dealt all the right cards but to the person who learns to play a bad hand well. To say that the past four years have dealt Indiana House Republicans “poor cards” would be an understatement. In the worst two campaign cycles for Republicans since Watergate, general assemblies nationwide have seen an epic partisan shift. The Midwest has seen the Democrat Party gain a total of 78 state house seats from 2004 to 2008, with 6 of 7 states shifting power from a Republican speaker in 2004 to a Democrat speaker in 2008. Since 2000, Iowa House Republicans have lost 12 seats, Michigan 14, Ohio 13, Minnesota 22… It will take a decade for some of these caucuses to recover such losses. By contrast, in Indiana, House Republicans have one more seat than we did after the 2000 election.

It’s been said that true success comes not to the person who is dealt all the right cards but to the person who learns to play a bad hand well.  To say that the past four years have dealt Indiana House Republicans “poor cards” would be an understatement.  In the worst two campaign cycles for Republicans since Watergate, general assemblies nationwide have seen an epic partisan shift.  The Midwest has seen the Democrat Party gain a total of 78 state house seats from 2004 to 2008, with 6 of 7 states shifting power from a Republican speaker in 2004 to a Democrat speaker in 2008.  Since 2000, Iowa House Republicans have lost 12 seats, Michigan 14, Ohio 13, Minnesota 22…  It will take a decade for some of these caucuses to recover such losses.  By contrast, in Indiana, House Republicans have one more seat than we did after the 2000 election.

Indiana House Republicans are the only GOP house caucus in the Midwest that has achieved a net gain in seats since the 2000 election, all while operating under
Democrat-drawn 2001 legislative maps.

When House Republicans took the majority in 2004, we achieved economic expansion, education reform, and a balanced budget for the first time in a decade and had the courage to address controversial measures like Daylight Saving Time and Major Moves in the face of a 2006 election cycle that presented unprecedented challenges for Republicans.  With national trends shaving 7% off of the Republican baseline vote in our state and Indiana playing host to three Battleground congressional races (all of which were lost by the GOP), House Republicans withstood the national Democrat tsunami with the best results in the Midwest.  At 49-51 in 2006, the Indiana House remained the closest chamber in the nation.

The Democrat buzz of 2006 reached a fever pitch in 2008.  At the national level, a heavily contested Democrat primary stirred rabid interest amongst Hoosiers. At the state level, Jill Long Thompson never truly threatened Governor Daniels, diverting Democrat attention (and money) to House campaigns.  On Election Day, Indiana saw the biggest increase in Democrat presidential votes in the nation.  Yet again, Indiana House Republicans outperformed their Midwest counterparts, winning 2 Democrat open seats, defeating a long time Democrat incumbent in New Albany, and coming within 400 votes of victory in two other Democrat held seats.  In the end, however, the Obama wave was too much to withstand in several of our most competitive races, particularly two in Marion County where President Obama increased his margin of victory by 100,000 votes over Senator John Kerry’s in 2004.  Despite this challenge, our net loss was only one seat.

Certainly, we have “played our bad cards well” in the last 4 years. 
In 2010, Indiana House Republicans will be the only GOP caucus in the Midwest
within striking distance of the majority at 48-52. 

 Indiana House Republicans, battle-tested and better for it, are ready to meet the challenge of the next two years head on.  We have retained our key political and finance staffers, critiqued our 2008 efforts, put our budget in place, and are actively recruiting the next generation of candidates statewide.  Indiana House Republicans will hit the ground running in this, the most pivotal cycle in a generation, as it will determine which caucus has majority control over the redistricting of state legislative and congressional maps in 2011.  This redistricting offers a chance to reshuffle the proverbial cards.