Indiana’s Lesson for Republicans

Indiana’s Senate primary on May 8 is offering an instructive lesson on the Republican Party’s future—with or without President Trump. The emerging GOP front-runner in the conservative-minded state, businessman and state legislator Mike Braun, is running as a political outsider who’s a critic of free-trade agreements and an ardent opponent of illegal immigration. He ties himself to Trump on the campaign trail, but his campaign ads focus mostly on the issues animating the president’s coalition.

Republican expectations have started to tilt in Braun’s favor: One public poll released last week shows Braun has pulled ahead of Todd Rokita and Luke Messer, the two congressmen he’s running against—a finding Braun’s own campaign has seen in its internal tracking. His rivals have faced their share of political pitfalls lately: Messer has been facing criticism for concealing two DUIs he received when he was in his 20s, while Rokita has taken friendly fire from Trump’s reelection campaign for misleading voters that his campaign has the administration’s backing. Neither candidate has raised the type of money expected from members of Congress looking for a promotion.

The two congressmen are trying to battle criticisms that they’re part of the dreaded party establishment: Rokita, first elected to statewide office in his early 30s, was an early Marco Rubio supporter—even though he now pledges allegiance to Trump. Messer moved to Northern Virginia after getting elected to Congress; one of his TV ads shows a photo of his son playing youth basketball for a team in the tony Washington suburb of McLean. Even support from Vice President Mike Pence’s brother, Greg, hasn’t done much to help Messer out.

Braun, meanwhile, is cheekily portraying himself as a mini-Trump of sorts: successful CEO of a national auto-parts distributor who is largely self-funding his campaign to take on the GOP establishment. His campaign loves drawing attention to a picture of his two rivals at a debate wearing near-identical dark suits and red ties, while Braun casually sports a wrinkled blue shirt without a tie. He’s now dubbing his two opponents the “Swamp Brothers”—a narrative he drives home in his latest television ad. Perception matters in politics, and Braun’s playing the outsider role to a tee.

Braun still has some hurdles to overcome: Rokita is hitting him for voting in past Democratic primaries, while a pro-Messer super PAC is up with an ad targeting his vote for a tax hike in the state legislature. But if Trump’s own campaign experience offered any lessons, it’s that conservative voters are willing to overlook past Democratic connections and heterodox positions —as long as you’re selling yourself as a swamp-draining populist in the moment.