Former Republican Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard has fielded suggestions that he run for various elected offices over the years since he left the City-County building in 2015.
None of them felt right, he said. But Indiana secretary of state does.
The lifelong Republican who surprised everyone when he won the mayor's office in 2007 is now coming out of political retirement to run for the statewide office as an independent. Should Republican Secretary of State Diego Morales win the party's nomination this summer, Ballard will face him, a Democrat and a Libertarian on the ballot in November in what was already shaping up to be a must-watch race.
Beau Bayh, who comes from an Indiana political dynasty, is one of the Democrats seeking his party's nomination.
"I think both parties have taken a turn to the right and to the left a little bit more than the average person likes, and I think they feel disaffected," Ballard told IndyStar in a March 3 interview. "I think they feel like the parties don't really represent who they are anymore. And I'm just frankly, at this point, I'm one of them."
He formally launched his campaign the morning of March 4 with a video laying out the pitch: Both parties are broken. In a world of increasingly "toxic" politics, an independent voice should oversee elections and not engage in partisanship. And a third thing: There's a strong chance he could unlock ballot access for independents everywhere in Indiana, so long as he garners at least 2% of the vote.
What's left unsaid are the realities of the Republican race. Nominees for secretary of state are determined not by primary voters, but by a handful of party insiders at a state convention who have proven themselves to lean more conservative and anti-establishment.
Though Morales is a controversial candidate among Republicans writ-large ― he's made headlines for criticism of his overseas travel and luxury vehicle purchases with taxpayer dollars, and recent polling found more primary voters see him unfavorably than favorably ― he is popular among convention delegates, who picked him over former Gov. Eric Holcomb's endorsed choice in 2022.
Ballard declined to comment on Morales' performance as secretary of state.
"I let other people decide that, frankly," he said. "We don't know who's going to be the candidates. Both parties have challenges within the convention, so we'll see what that looks like. But I would suggest to you that I'm going to be professional, low-key, which is how I like to govern, and that's what I'll be doing."
Could Ballard be successful as an independent?
There's already polling from Independent Indiana, a nonpartisan group organizing to get more independent candidates elected, suggesting he could easily unlock ballot access. Learning of this previously un-released data over the winter was part of what planted the seed, Ballard said.
The poll the group commissioned found that when faced with a nameless ballot for Secretary of State in November 2026 ― "the Republican nominee," "the Democratic nominee," "an independent candidate" ― only 10% of respondents chose the independent, 34% the Democrat and 44% the Republican.
But when Ballard's name and former title was presented as the independent, alongside a theoretical ballot containing Republican incumbent Morales and Democrat Beau Bayh, the son of former U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, Ballard's odds rose: He polled 24% to Morales' 29% and Bayh's 32%. (InACT, LLC, surveyed 400 likely Indiana general election voters from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%.)
In other words, Ballard mostly attracted votes away from Morales and boosted Bayh to the top. This is a theoretical contest where both Morales and Bayh win their convention races in June. In June, Morales is being challenged by Knox County Clerk David Shelton, and Bayh will face Army veteran and Bargersville business owner Blythe Potter.
Lauri Shillings, creative director at the University of Indianapolis, is seeking the Libertarian nomination.
Ballard said he sees a path to victory in other polling by Independent Indiana that finds 41% of the Hoosier electorate now identifies as independent. Creating a new political party and opening up ballot access, thereby giving Hoosiers more choices at the polls, would be a welcome bonus, he said.
"As we're finding out all the time, what people think is going to be the norm is not the norm," he said. "You can go back to '07 and see who won that mayor's race."
Ballard rose from obscurity to run for mayor in 2007, as unknown to Republican party insiders as they were to him. He was vastly out-spent in the race and the general wisdom was that this retired marine officer with no political experience didn't stand a chance against the incumbent Democrat Bart Peterson in Indiana's largest liberal stronghold.
That wisdom didn't hold against the Peterson administration's decision to raise local income taxes in an already volatile year where Hoosiers experienced dramatic property tax increases.
This revolt led to one of the most significant upsets in Indiana political history. Ballard was the first to beat an incumbent Indianapolis mayor in 40 years, and Republicans also took the city-county council.
He went on to serve two terms and declined to run for a third. During his tenure, Ballard's actions might be unpalatable to the modern GOP: He moved to electrify Indianapolis' municipal fleet before many cities did so; he championed the development of IndyGo's bus rapid transit and a vast expansion of bike lanes, believing robust transit and connectivity attracts economic development and young earners; he turned against his colleagues in the Statehouse and spoke out fervently against Indiana's Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, a controversial law he and many prominent sports and business figures believed would license discrimination against the LGBT community. He left office with an approval rating above 65%.
Since leaving office, Ballard has served on nonprofit boards, spent some time in South Carolina and moved back to Indianapolis in 2023. Last year he published a book, "Urban Republican Mayor," in which he reflected on his time in office and the ways in which he says the national GOP is disconnected from the needs and desires of urban residents. Most recently, he weighed in on the mid-decade redistricting debate, still identifying as a Republican at the time but excoriating the proposed map as "shortsighted."
Now he's starting to collect the requisite 37,000 signatures, or 2% of the number of voters who participated in the last secretary of state election. He said his main aim with this office would be to "change the dynamic about the partisanship." He wants to create a statewide nonpartisan voter guide with information about every candidate down to the precinct level.
"This has to be, in my opinion, a low-key, professional office that doesn't make the news unless you're checking on how's the election is going," he said. "I want them to be proud of who's in office."
The election is on Nov. 3.