EVANSVILLE — For months EVSC at-large school board member Melissa Moore — an active Democrat — has insisted she hasn’t decided whether to seek re-election this year under the party’s banner.
Now Moore plans to file her re-election candidacy on Thursday, the last day to do so — and still says she hasn’t decided whether to run as a Democrat in largely Republican Vanderburgh County or as a nonpartisan candidate. She couldn’t pinpoint a reason why when asked by the Courier & Press on Tuesday.
Vanderburgh County GOP Chairman Kyhle Moers thinks he knows why. Moore says he’s wrong.
The touchy political scenario became an option last year, when Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signed a bill allowing candidates for school board seats to disclose their party affiliation — if they wish to do so — in what had been strictly nonpartisan elections.
GOP Chair Moers points to the fact that Republicans have dominated in recent countywide elections, and all school board elections are countywide. In 2022, the most recent midterm election year, Republicans won 58% of all straight-ticket votes cast in Vanderburgh County. The GOP’s candidates for countywide, state and federal offices all won sizable majorities in the county.
Moore is waiting to see whether a challenger files for her seat as a Republican, Moers asserted.
If one or more Republicans do file, the GOP chair theorized, Moore will file as a nonpartisan candidate to avoid confronting Vanderburgh County voters with a straight Republican-versus-Democrat choice that wouldn’t work to her advantage.
“If there’s somebody who’s a stated Republican in that race, she’s going to have a real struggle if she files as a Democrat,” Moers told the Courier & Press Tuesday. “I think she will file as a Democrat — if no Republican files for it.”
Moore scoffed at that theory. She acknowledged she has scheduled her re-election filing at the county election office twice before and postponed — on June 8 and on Tuesday — but not because she decided to wait and see whether a Republican files for her seat.
“The reason why I hadn’t filed yet (is) I’ve been on vacation and my kid got married,” Moore said. “Something came up.
“So no, it ain’t got nothing to do with waiting to see — oh, Lordy — waiting to see who is (running) and who isn’t,” she said.
Moore’s filing on Thursday is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Theoretically, that would leave a small window of time for a Republican to swoop in to the Vanderburgh County Election Office nby noon and file to run against her. It also works against Moers’ theory that she is waiting until the last moment possible to declare her intentions for political reasons.
Moore said she legitimately still hasn’t made up her mind whether to run as a Democrat for her school board seat or to run as a nonpartisan candidate.
It’s been several months now. The Courier & Press asked Moore why it has taken her this long to decide.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It just — I don’t know. That I do not know.”
Moore does have one challenger thus far — Alan Goad, 62, a nonpartisan candidate who nevertheless is active in the local Republican Party.
Goad told the Courier & Press this week that some parents believe Moore has “a national and political agenda inside of (the) school board,” a charge Moore denied. What she cares about, she said, are teachers, students, families and public education.
Moore, 54, is involved in the state and local Democratic Party organizations. She is a deputy chair of the Vanderburgh County Democratic Party and a former candidate for vice chair of the Indiana Democratic Party.
Moore also has served as the state party’s deputy for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Moore had run unsuccessfully for the board’s at-large school board seat in 2018, but in 2022 she won a five-candidate race for the seat by 128 votes. Her 33.63% of the vote was just enough to squeeze past second-place finisher Jeff Worthington’s 33.29%.
Filing for school board seats opened on May 19 and closes at noon Thursday. So far just one candidate — Republican Ryan Owens in District 1 — has filed to run under the banner of a political party.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: EVSC school board member’s waiting game spawns a theory
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press | USA TODAY Network
