INDIANAPOLIS — In normal times, congressional and legislative incumbents have overwhelming election advantages. But these are not normal times. Many Americans and Hoosiers are not in a good mood; they’re afraid and PO’d.
Midterm elections have historically served as a referendum on the sitting president, and on Tuesday, Donald J. Trump’s RealClearPolitics composite polling approval stood at 40.5%, with 56.9% disapproving. The U.S. right/wrong track composites are 34% right track, 58.9% wrong track. Democrats hold a 6% congressional generic ballot lead, 46% to 40%, according to Decision Desk HQ.
These are the kinds of datasets that define a coming election wave.
These numbers were posted before Trump announced Wednesday at the NATO summit that the ceasefire with Iran has ended (“I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re scum”), resumed bombing Iran, said that “we had 11 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan,” and once again demanded Denmark cede Greenland.
It was a rambling and unhinged performance.
Between 2002 and 2024, only five Indiana Senate incumbents lost reelection bids in some 600 races. On May 5, five targeted Senate Republicans were upset in a $15 million avalanche of dark national money as part of Trump’s retribution campaign against “RINOs” who voted against new congressional maps.
There were 125 seats up for election in Indiana, with 113 incumbents filing for reelection, including 30 Democrats and 83 Republicans. Of that total, eight GOP incumbents lost in primaries (including Rep. Bruce Borders, R-Jasonville, and untargeted Sens. Nick McKinley, R-Marion, and Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell), representing 7.1% of incumbents who filed for reelection.
There were several other close calls. Sen. Spencer Deery, R-West Lafayette, won by three votes in a race still under recount. Sen. Greg Goode, R-Terre Haute, received only 52.9% in a three-way race. Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, was renominated by only 14 votes. U.S. Rep. Jefferson Shreve defeated an obscure homeschool advocate, Sarah Janisse Brown, with just 53.1% of the vote despite a huge money advantage.
And incumbent Secretary of State Diego Morales lost a four-way Republican convention renomination fight in June, the second incumbent in four years to be denied another term after Holli Sullivan lost to Morales in 2022.
This scenario compares to the last midterm in 2022, when six incumbents lost in primaries — Sen. Kevin Boehnlein and Reps. Dan Leonard, John Jacob, John Young, Curt Nisly and Jeff Ellington — with only Jacob, Leonard and Young defeated by newcomers, while the rest lost in incumbent-vs.-incumbent races following the 2021 reapportionment. In November 2022, two more incumbents — appointed Sen. Michael Griffin and Rep. Terri Austin — lost, bringing the total to eight.
But we’re only halfway through this cycle.
In 2026, Hoosier Democrats have filed candidates in all 25 Indiana Senate races and all but three of the 100 House races, which is the most expansive ticket for the party this century.
“This November, over 6.5 million Hoosiers will have a Democrat running in their Statehouse district,” House Democratic Leader Phil GiaQuinta, D- Fort Wayne, said in a statement. “Indiana Democrats are excited to provide voters with a choice at the ballot box, and we stand ready to fight back against extreme policies that don’t serve our communities.”
According to Ballotpedia, 28 states have had state legislative primaries this year. In those states, at least 117 incumbents lost to primary challengers — 3.9% of incumbents who ran for reelection and 15.4% of contested incumbents. This anti-incumbency trend extended nationally, with 14 legislative incumbents losing primary races in West Virginia, 12 in South Dakota, 10 in North Carolina, nine in Idaho, eight in Montana and Alabama, seven in New York and six in North Dakota.
Veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres told Newsmax that while the president’s party typically gives up U.S. House seats in a midterm election, the extent of those losses is closely tied to the president’s popularity.
“When presidential job approval is above 50%, the average loss of House seats for his party is 14,” Ayres said. “When it’s below 50%, the average loss of House seats for his party is 32.”
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said the anti-establishment mood spans both parties.
“This is going to be a big year for primary losses in the House,” Kondik told The Hill. “There have already been eight incumbents who lost. The Republican establishment became less and less powerful and popular and has basically been replaced by a new establishment, which is Trump.”
Kondik described “a Democratic Tea Party movement going on,” adding there’s “an anti-establishment feeling on both sides.”
In June, Vice President JD Vance called his negotiations with Iran’s fanatical Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a “cool thing.” At Wednesday’s NATO summit, Trump said during a jaw-dropping, head-snapping presser, “They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people. And they’re vicious, violent people. There’s something wrong with them; they’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”
This rhetoric could set in motion a restricted Strait of Hormuz, volatile gas and fertilizer prices and the risk of broader military action and casualties in Trump’s war of choice.
These are the kinds of scenarios that fuel election waves.
Brian A. Howey is an opinion columnist for State Affairs Indiana and the founder of Howey Politics Indiana. His writing offers analysis and opinion shaped by decades of experience covering Indiana politics. Email him at howey@stateaffairs.com.
