Bite-sized elections could determine future of Vanderburgh County Republican Party

EVANSVILLE — Republicans will pick someone new to supervise November's election in Vanderburgh County on May 15, just two days before the group doing the selecting undergoes a possibly significant makeover.

The scheduled caucus of local GOP precinct committee ("PC") members will choose someone to serve the remaining four months of Republican County Clerk Carla Hayden's term. Hayden, who is Vanderburgh County's chief elections officer, announced in a resignation letter to Gov. Eric Holcomb that her last day will be Aug. 29 — just a little less than 10 weeks before what is expected to be a high-turnout presidential election.

State law makes clear that the Vanderburgh County Republican Party must caucus to choose a replacement for Hayden within 30 days of receipt of her official April 30 notice.

But it didn't have to be May 15.

That's two days before the county's election board certifies the results of primary elections to be held Tuesday. On the day the election board meets, May 17, the winners of about 40 contested elections for Republican PC slots — bite-sized elections in which only voters who live in designated precincts can participate — will be certified as winners and will start serving.

The tiny elections, for which some groups have recruited candidates, could shake up the 135-member Republican precinct committee, which also will select a new party chairman in March 2025.

Most of the 135 were appointed by GOP Chairman Mike Duckworth or former chairman Wayne Parke because no one stepped up to run in a primary election. Those appointees don't have to actually live in the precinct they are appointed to represent.

Not surprisingly, Duckworth and Parke, the latter of whom served in the unpaid position from 2010 until 2021, have tended to appoint Republicans who support them. Like Johnny Kincaid, appointed by Parke in 2016 to represent Knight Township Precinct 2.

"Wayne and I got along well," Kincaid said with a chuckle. "If you’ve got (135) precincts in the county, and 95 of them (PC positions) are filled by the chairman, the chairman has a lot of power in that."

Tuesday could bring changes

But Tuesday's GOP primary election could still alter the 135-member committee that will choose a party chairman next year.

Duckworth himself has two opponents for the PC position in Center Township Precinct 7. He said he's not worried about it too much.

"They’ll pick who they want in there," the GOP chairman said.

Duckworth says he hasn't decided whether to seek another four-year term as chairman in 2025, but he likely wouldn't like to see Michael Daugherty win his contested election Tuesday for a PC slot in Ward 5 Precinct 2. Duckworth tried unsuccessfully to block Daugherty, the Libertarian nominee for Evansville mayor last year, from seeking the position. Afterward, Daugherty called Duckworth a RINO (Republican in Name Only) and declared he would run for chairman himself next year.

'The existing PCs will be voting'

But choosing May 15 as the date of the caucus to pick a new elections chief at least guarantees that the winners of Tuesday's precinct elections — a group that might not be as hospitable to Duckworth and other established Republicans — won't be in office yet to make the selection.

"The existing PCs will be voting," said Duckworth, who added that former Clerk Marsha Abell is the only candidate thus far to replace Hayden.

That guarantees the group that selects Hayden's replacement won't include such Republicans as Mike Boatman, who is among the many strong supporters of former President Donald Trump seeking PC positions Tuesday. Boatman, who frequently travels to attend Trump events, calls himself the former president's strongest supporter in Vanderburgh County.

Boatman isn't a fan of Duckworth or others he regards as establishment Republicans.

Boatman is opposed in Ward 2 Precinct 11 by Maytes Rivera, to whom Duckworth gave special permission to run. Rivera needed it because she didn't meet the requirements of Indiana's "two-primaries law," which requires that a candidate's two most recent votes in Indiana primary elections must have been cast in primaries held by the party he or she seeks to represent.

Win or lose on Tuesday, Boatman is facing the same issue as many candidates for PC positions.

There aren't many Republican voters in his predominantly Democratic precinct, where Trump got just 166 votes — 37% of ballots cast — in 2020. Boatman has sent postcards to 64 voters he says have voted in Republican primary elections at least once since 2016.

"There’s no way to know," he said. "There’s no polls or anything."

Looking ahead

Of such small, seemingly insignificant elections the future of the Vanderburgh County Republican Party may be determined. The local GOP, fractured though it may be by a series of bitter intraparty contests, is still one of Indiana's largest political organizations.

Kincaid, a past candidate for legislative and township offices and now a local podcast host, said it will take time to unite the party. But first, Tuesday's primary elections — precinct by precinct — have to play out.

"What you’re really seeing in this flood of people that came in this year, that’s the conservative wing of the party that wants to be heard and wants to be part of the process," Kincaid said.

"That’s what you’re seeing in a lot of these contested races — people who are tired of the status quo, and they’re looking for the party to get shook up a little bit."

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Bite-sized elections could determine future of Evansville Republicans