Political flexibility was long a hallmark of Vigo County’s voting history, until the Donald Trump era.
Tuesday’s election revealed a hint of that flexibility returning to a community once regarded as the nation’s presidential bellwether.
A majority of Vigo County voters favored the winning presidential candidate in 31 of 33 elections from 1892 to 2016, toggling between Republicans and Democrats. Vigo voters shifted from Taft to Wilson, Eisenhower to Kennedy, and Bush to Obama. That record snapped in 2020, when the nation elected Democrat Joe Biden by 7 million votes over the Republican Trump, and most Vigo County voters favored Trump.
Straight-ticket voting surged in Vigo County during the Trump years. When he was first elected in 2016, 41% of the county’s voters cast straight-ticket ballots (an automatic selection of all candidates from the same party). In the middle of Trump’s lone term in office, 41% of Vigo County voters again cast straight-ticket ballots in the 2018 non-presidential election.
Those percentages of straight-ticket voters marked a peak for Vigo County since, at least, the 1990s.
Then came 2020. With the nation as polarized as ever, an even broader swath of Vigo County voters — 46.2% — cast straight-ticket ballots. And, 27% of all Vigo County voters that year cast straight-ticket Republican ballots. Straight-ticket voting moderated significantly in this year’s election. Only 38% of the voters chose the all-one-party option — 10,492 voters out of 27,392 overall. That more closely resembles the pre-Trump levels of local straight-ticket voting — 28% of all voters in 2014 and 32% in 2012. Of course, the Trump ideological shift is still apparent in Vigo County.
Straight-ticket Republicans began outnumbering straight-ticket Democrats in 2016, breaking a longtime trend, and the GOP has maintained that advantage here since. In Tuesday’s election, 5,804 Vigo Countians voted straight-ticket Republican while 4,529 cast straight-ticket Democratic ballots. Also in that span, the Vigo County commissioners seats have shifted from a 2-1 split favoring Democrats to all Republicans. In Tuesd
ay’s election, Republican Mark Clinkenbeard won the District 1 commissioner seat over incumbent Democrat Brendan Kearns by 52.8% to 47.2%. Clinkenbeard will join Republicans Chris Switzer and Mike Morris, who won their seats in 2020. Locally, Republicans also held onto the county prosecutor’s office with incumbent Terry Modesitt, won the Superior Court Division I judgeship with Charles Johnson, and had its incumbent state legislators reelected — Indiana House representatives Alan Morrison in District 42, Bruce Borders in District 45 and Bob Heaton in District 46, along with state Sen. Jon Ford in District 38.
Still, the hints of Vigo County’s past flexibility flickered, showing a larger percentage of voters split their tickets between parties. Democrat Nancy Allsup closely won a County Council seat over incumbent Brenda Wilson, and incumbent Vicki Weger held onto her council seat with a close win over Republican Ryan Cummins. Those victories give Democrats a 4-3 edge over Republicans on the County Council, after Republican incumbents David Thompson and Travis Norris also won Tuesday.
Sheriff John Plasse won a second term as a Democrat, too, defeating Republican Aaron Loudermilk 63% to 37% on Tuesday. Uncontested Democrats also won seats for Circuit Court Division 3 (Sarah Mullican), Superior Court Division 4 (Chris Newton), surveyor (Bruce Allen) and county assessor (Kevin Gardner).
On the statewide level, straight-ticket voting may have helped Republican secretary of state candidate Diego Morales. Despite questions about his qualifications and claims that the 2020 presidential election wasn’t legitimate, Morales won handily over Democratic opponent Destiny Wells at 54% to 40%. Morales also carried Vigo County, but by a slighter 51% to 45% margin, tighter than the winning Republican in the other statewide race, Tera Klutz, who got 56% of the Vigo County vote in her race for state treasurer.
Republicans winning statewide offices in Indiana is no surprise. The Hoosier state is among the nation’s reddest. The University of Virginia Center for Politics rates Indiana as the 13th most Republican leaning state, offering a candidate such as Morales a solid chance of victory.
Nonetheless, Morales’ win reflects the strength of the GOP in Indiana, which is one of only six states that allow straight-ticket voting, according to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. (Eleven states have ended straight-ticket voting in the past decade, and Illinois did so in 1997.)
“There is no doubt, Democrats are in a difficult position today,” said Andy Downs, director emeritus of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics in Fort Wayne. “No longer can Democrats in the mold of Bayh, O’Bannon, Joe Donnelly or John Gregg be counted on to win statewide. They have lost their winning formula. It will be difficult to raise funds without a proven winning formula.”
Vigo County, long an outlier as a purple community politically, became a mirror of the Republican majority of Indiana through Trump in 2016. Tuesday’s election offered a glimmer of a chance that its old two-party mindset could come back, eventually.