There's a price to pay for filling ballots with the state's worst political hacks. Meet the bill collector.
Indiana Republicans keep elevating cranks, liars and scoundrels to elected office. They've finally found a menace beyond the pale: Greg Ballard.
Ballard, the former Republican mayor of Indianapolis, has launched an independent bid for secretary of state. He's seeking an office held by Republican Diego Morales, a first-ballot hall-of-shamer with a pattern of lies and corruption so deep that I've stopped trying to fit it all into every column.
Suddenly, though, Republicans want to enforce standards. State Rep. Andrew Ireland, R-Indianapolis, flagged Ballard's brief residence in South Carolina, and wanted to know whether Ballard committed a felony by voting absentee in Indiana in 2023 and 2024 (Ballard says he moved back to Indiana in 2023).
Uh, hello, is this keyboard on?
Way back in 2022, I broke the news that Morales, who, again, is the current Indiana elections chief, twice voted illegally in 2018 as part of a ruse in which he was pretending to live in Hendricks County while running for Congress. I don't recall a single Republican posting siren emojis to social media in an effort to stop Indiana's worst statewide candidate of the pre-Micah Beckwith era.
Morales lied about his residency, lied about his military record and lied about his resume— and sailed to victory.
Now, conservatives are framing Ballard's entrance into the secretary of state's race as some establishment scheme to elect Democrat Beau Bayh by splitting the Republican vote. That gets it exactly backward. Today's Indiana Republican Party is the party of Gov. Mike Braun, Beckwith, Morales, Attorney General Todd Rokita and Sen. Jim Banks — a team of keyboard warriors and Trump clones.
The so-called establishment has been gutted and left occupied by squatters who wouldn't have been fit to grab coffee for Republican leaders of generations past. Morales is the establishment. When everyone in power is a jackass, being honorable and competent is as anti-establishment as it gets.
Enter Ballard, the new anti-establishment threat to the Republican Party.
Ballard was a popular two-term mayor of Indianapolis because he put constituents over party. Republicans might hate that he's left the tent and put their grip on a statewide office at risk, but they only have themselves to blame. There's a price to pay for filling ballots with an endless supply of the state's worst political hacks, and telling voters they have no choice but to accept abysmal leadership.
Where there's a demand for better options, supply will eventually meet it. Ballard is not a random protest candidate. He's not a fringe third-party candidate catching fire with one big issue. Ballard left the mayor's office in 2015 with an approval rating above 65% — more than 40 points higher than Braun's statewide number — because he applied Republican principles to an urban constituency.
Ballard championed electric vehicles, bike lanes and mass transit even as Democrats opposed many of those measures. Ballard became the most prominent Republican opponent of RFRA, warning it would devastate Indianapolis' convention industry. He prioritized the long-term health of the city over the short-term comfort of his party, and voters rewarded him for it.
He is the last Republican to successfully run countywide in Marion County, because he heard what voters wanted and gave it to them. It's been foolish of Republicans to not follow his example — and it'd be even more foolish for them to count him out as an independent running statewide.
Whether Ballard wins or loses, his candidacy exists because of how completely today's Indiana Republican Party has abandoned the median voter. Most Indiana voters exist somewhere in the center. Ballard can make them feel seen again.
If Ballard can garner 37,000 signatures to get on the ballot, he'll not only have a legitimate chance to win, he'll also open up ballot access to independent candidates in the future by clearing a 2% threshold. That could mean more competitive races for governor and attorney general.
A decade of Trump imitation has left Indiana Republicans ill-prepared for the competitive elections they've made inevitable. Turns out the biggest threat to Republicans isn't their scandal-plagued candidates. It's a decent man who knows how to win.