Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' name was not on any ballot Tuesday, but this year's municipal elections might have given him a boost headed into his final year in office.
In the final weeks of this year's campaign cycle, the two-term Republican governor's voice was everywhere. He cut radio advertisements for about 20 candidates for mayor, including 10 who were successful.
Political observers say they could help if his legislative agenda for the Indiana General Assembly's session that starts in January requires help from the local level.
One area where Indiana's new Republican majority of mayoral offices might help the governor is township government reform.
Eliminating, or at least substantially overhauling, a layer of government that he calls a relic of horse-and-buggy days when Hoosiers needed to be able to visit their officials in person has been on Daniels' agenda for years, and 2012 will be his last chance to take a crack at it.
Ed Feigenbaum, the publisher of Indiana Legislative Insight, said that state legislators have balked in part because township officials are critical local-level allies. Now, mayors who support the governor's position might be able to play that role.
"I'm a government modernization guy," said Lloyd Winnecke, the Republican who is Evansville's mayor-elect.
Daniels attended a fundraiser for Winnecke and also endorsed him in radio advertisements. For his part, Winnecke said he's been more focused on city-county consolidation.
"My focus here is not so much always on what the governor is trying to do on government modernization, but what are trying to do with the mechanism the Legislature provided us with four or five years ago," he said.
Still, Winnecke added, Daniels' name carries weight in Southwestern Indiana.
"The governor's very popular down here. To the extent that we can utilize his star power, that's always helpful," he said.
Joe McGuinness, a Republican who defeated an independent incumbent in the reliably-red city of Franklin, was also the beneficiary of a radio ad that featured the governor speaking on his behalf.
"It's not like I have his personal cell phone number or anything, but I had three or four different opportunities to meet him or talk to him. For me, he was helpful in the sense that it was moral support," McGuinness said.
He, too, said he hasn't yet thought about whether his stances might mesh with the governor's in the upcoming legislative session.
"I have not had a real in-depth conversation with the governor or any of his staff, and they've not reached out to me in the sense that 'We're going to do this radio ad for you; what are you going to do for us?'" he said.
Daniels isn't the only one who stands to benefit from his party's control of mayoral seats.
U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican candidate for governor, was everywhere. He endorsed 33 mayoral candidates and fundraised or campaigned with 18 of them. He helped raise more than $400,000 for municipal candidates.
Former Indiana House Speaker John Gregg, the Democratic candidate for governor, meanwhile, kept a lower profile, but he helped raise money for Democratic mayoral candidates such as Rick Davis in Evansville.
Tuesday's municipal elections turned a Democratic advantage of 68 mayor's seats to Republicans' 48 and three independents into a Republican lead of 61 seats to Democrats' 54, with two races still undecided and two independents.
Still, Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker said there were positive signs for his party headed into 2012.
He noted that the parties that are typically the minority in overall numbers won the mayor's offices in the state's three largest cities – Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Evansville.
"Obviously the Republicans made some gains, but I think that the moderate likeability of candidates in a lot of the cities and local politics trumped partisanship," he said.
"What you didn't see on the Republican side in a lot of municipal races were tea party republicans. It was a lot of folks that are center-right."
That, he said, could bode well for candidates like Gregg and U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, the Democratic Senate candidate.
Both have strived to position themselves in the political center. Parker said that's a better place to be than the far right.
"Those two guys are going to be the candidates in those races that people are going to want to sit down and have a beer with," he said.