INDIANAPOLIS — As the Tea Party morphed into what became MAGA, the ranks of Hoosier RINOs — Republicans in name only — continue to swell.
It began in 2012, when Republican primary voters tossed out U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar — who won an Indiana record 7.35 million votes over a half-century — and nominated Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who went on to lose the Senate seat that had been in the GOP column for 36 years.
On Jan. 6, 2021, MAGA insurrectionists took aim at the vice president, chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!” An impromptu gallows had been erected for him on Capitol Hill. In MAGA world, the former Indiana governor is the ultimate RINO for refusing to subvert the U.S. Constitution to complete President Donald Trump’s coup d’etat.
Two years later, former Gov. Mitch Daniels joined the list, with a Club for Growth TV ad on behalf of Senate aspirant Jim Banks describing him to primary voters as “an old guard Republican clinging to the old ways of the bad old days.” Daniels, who ended a 16-year era of Democratic gubernatorial dominance, was no longer a conservative in the MAGA mindset and “not the right guy for Indiana anymore.”
Gov. Eric Holcomb — a former Indiana Republican Party chair — joined the list in 2024, with secretary of state hopeful Diego Morales telling GOP convention delegates that Holcomb had “abused his power” during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the governor who signed into law the nation’s most far-reaching abortion restrictions.
Those abortion restrictions reached Holcomb’s desk with the help of Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, the latest Hoosier Republican to join the RINO ledger. His sin leading up to his decision this past week not to seek reelection to his post? Refusing to force 21 Republicans in his caucus to pass a redistricting plan in December 2025 amid Trump’s push to redraw congressional maps.
Preceding Bray (who had a 100% rating on the 2025 Indiana Chamber of Commerce Legislator Scorecard) on the list are six senators who lost primary battles this past May amid RINO allegations.
They are Sens. Travis Holdman and Linda Rogers (both scoring 100% on the Chamber scorecard), Greg Walker (92%), Jim Buck (85%), Rick Niemeyer (80%) and Dan Dernulc (who scored a 71% four-year average). Two targeted senators who survived primary challenges are Greg Goode (92%) and Spencer Deery (compiling an 82% four-year average).
Up for reelection in 2028 are these potential Senate RINOS who joined the fateful 21 — Sens. Ryan Mishler, Vaneta Becker, Mike Bohacek, Brian Buchanan, Ed Charbonneau, Mike Crider, Sue Glick and Jean Leising.
Bray said his decision not to seek another term as president pro tem was made in part to spare MAGA more scalps. But the RINO knives are unsheathed.
Then there’s U.S. Sen. Todd Young, who is poised for a $100 million primary battle in 2028 whether he votes to confirm Attorney General Todd Blanche. According to CQ, Young and Banks voted with Trump 100% of the time in 2025.Of course, the best way to become a RINO is to get sideways with our dear leader. You can have a 100% voting record on Trump legislative priorities, as Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy did, yet be deemed a RINO and clipped from power.
Beyond the Indiana congressional delegation and much of the Indiana House — whose members are adherents to all things Trump — the list of Hoosier RINOs is sprawling and growing: former Lt. Govs. John Mutz, Becky Skillman (who donated to the Senate incumbents) and Suzanne Crouch; former Republican National Committee member John Hammond III; former Surgeon General Jerome Adams; former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats (fired by a Trump tweet) and former National Committee member Marsha Coats (who questioned Pence on how he tolerated Trump).
Critics of the RINO moniker describe this era of GOP fratricide thus: MAGA/Trump acolytes are committed to driving out longtime Republicans. Most, if not all, of these political leaders voted for Trump, defend gun rights, oppose abortion, support strict illegal immigration policies, believe in states’ rights and small government, and oppose intrusive federal overreach.
That sentiment seems reasonable and logical, but compilers of this growing RINO list are not cowed by defeat, as Mourdock proved. They are seeking the purity for the cult of personality. That’s why Trump can say he “loves the inflation” and insist that affordability is a hoax, and his acolytes nod in agreement.
Two years after Mourdock botched his bid for the Senate, he was feted at the 2014 Indiana Republican State Convention in Fort Wayne. Lugar, who had won a record 7.1 million votes in his eight Senate campaigns, never received such an honor.
In speaking to convention delegates that June, Mourdock used his farewell address to compare the rise of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany to the decline of America and its descent into “bankruptcy.” The delegates gave him a standing ovation. An IndyStar headline captured the moment: “Richard Mourdock says nation going way of Hitler’s Nazi Germany.”
Before Banks’ ascension as Indiana’s powerbroker and Trumpian enforcer, I reached out to Indiana’s generational Republican kingmaker, Bob Grand.
“Bob, I’m compiling a list of Hoosier RINOs. Are you now a RINO?”
Grand texted me back, “Republican Involved Now Optimistic. Yes.”
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.
