EVANSVILLE — All things are possible for 8th District Democrats who are enjoying a confidence and momentum boost in the afterglow of Mary Allen’s landslide victory in Tuesday’s congressional primary.
Republicans? Not so much. Though they have dominated 8th District elections since 2010 and political handicappers believe the district is too Republican for them to lose, the head of the district’s largest GOP organization admitted he’s nervous about the implications of Allen’s candidacy.
Republicans should be nervous, said 8th District Democratic chair Dave Crooks.
Crooks said Allen, an at-large member of the Evansville City Council, showed everyone in the primary that she’s a political superstar.
“I think what we’re going to learn between now and November is that Mary Allen is one of the top challengers in the country,” Crooks told the Courier & Press. “We’ve just got to motivate more people to get out and vote for her this fall. She’s an outstanding candidate.”
Crooks’ admittedly partisan message is that first-term Republican Congressman Mark Messmer is nothing special and could actually be vulnerable to a popular Democrat who resides in the district’s largest population center.
“We’ve got the least productive Congress in American history, probably since the Civil War, and we’ve got a (Republican) president (Donald Trump) that’s very unpopular right now,” Crooks said. “He’s becoming less popular by the day. And you’ve got an outstanding person like Mary Allen, who’s not just someone to put on the ballot. She’s the real deal.”
Anticipating Allen’s victory in the Democratic primary, Vanderburgh County GOP Chairman Kyhle Moers told the Courier & Press Monday that he still doesn’t think she can beat Messmer. The 8th District has consistently voted Republican in presidential, federal and statewide races by a large margin.
But Allen could maximize Democratic turnout and run well enough to stay within a few percentage points of Messmer, Moers said — and that would be bad for other GOP candidates in down-ballot races.
“If she drives high Democrat voter turnout in the 8th District, I see that being problematic for the (Indiana) Secretary of State race,” Moers said. “At least from my perspective as a Republican, I don’t want Mary Allen to turn out a bunch of Democratic voters and for Republicans to not turn out at least a counter measure of voters.”
Democrat Beau Bayh, grandson of Birch Bayh and son of former U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, is running for secretary of state. Republican incumbent Diego Morales is politically wobbly enough to have attracted two intraparty challengers for the nomination that will be decided by delegates at the Indiana Republican State Convention June 19-20 in Fort Wayne.
Beau Bayh has gotten plenty of national media attention. “A race for statewide office in Indiana could chart the way forward for national Democrats,” trumpeted a Politico story published late last month.
What will the Messmer-Allen contest be about?
Messmer didn’t mention Allen in a social media statement he made Tuesday thanking 8th District Republicans for renominating him.
“I am committed to fighting for our farmers, small business workers, and for the needs of every Hoosier family,” the statement said. “Together, honoring our shared Midwestern values, I pledge to make sure Indiana’s best days are yet to come!”
Messmer did not acknowledge a Courier & Press message seeking comment for this story. The Republican congressman does not speak to readers of the Courier & Press, which is located in the largest city and county in his 21-county district.
But Moers, who chairs the 8th District’s largest Republican organization, speaks to Messmer. The local GOP chairman thinks Democrat Allen is far too liberal for the conservative 8th District.
“(Messmer) thinks she’s really far left, too,” Moers said. “He definitely sees her as a radical.”
Moers can’t say for sure whether Messmer will make that argument against Allen.
“I’ve certainly helped try to advance that narrative with (Messmer’s) campaign,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see that come out.”
The Courier & Press asked Allen what she would say to a voter who asks her what Messmer has done to deserve being ousted from office.
“I would ask them, what has he done?” she said. “What do you think has been good or bad, or have you engaged with him at all? And then I could say, ‘Here’s what I can commit to you. Here’s who I am, and here’s how I plan to move forward.'”
Allen scoffed at the notion that she is a left-wing radical.
“That’s the problem,” she said. “That’s why we have such divisiveness.”
Allen insisted her campaign will be about listening to others and seeking solutions to problems.
“If (Messmer) wants to sling whatever generalizations my way, I can’t help that,” she said. “I mean, those are just talking points from the top, right? I mean, he’s just taking his marching orders. Those are the easy, generic titles that we can give to create division.
“To say someone’s radical? What does that mean? Because we want increased wages and we want more access to affordable health care? Because we want more people to have affordable housing?”
Allen went on.
“Because I don’t want to spend $25 billion on a war (in Iran) that Congress hasn’t approved yet?” she said. “Because I want to be accessible to my constituents? Because I want to be held accountable and I want to hold our executive branch accountable?”
Allen said she hopes Messmer will agree to debate her, “and then people can decide.”
‘A second wind’
Running against three largely unknown fellow Democrats who did not even raise enough money to have to file with the Federal Election Commission, Allen was able to win the primary by tirelessly driving all over the 8th District, knocking on doors, appearing in libraries and at every meeting and event that would have her, and by heavily employing social media. She also leaned on the support of party officials.
Some of her opponents — Mario Foradori of Terre Haute, Tell City resident Chris Rector and Covington resident Tabitha Zeigler — didn’t campaign aggressively. Rector and Foradori didn’t show up for an April 11 candidate forum in Evansville.
Now Allen must face an incumbent member of Congress with an incumbent’s ability to attract large donations. Messmer also will have the backing of a national party organization plus outside groups that could support him with independent expenditures if he struggles — though they likely would be reluctant to do so with dozens of other traditionally more competitive House seats elsewhere on the line.
Allen reports having $137,498.75 cash on hand through April 15 compared to Messmer’s $571,931.55.
Allen can avail herself of campaign tools that are cheaper options than television, said Bob Dion, a political scientist at the University of Evansville. There’s mail, digital advertising, radio ads, social media.
But at some point Allen must attract more money to run a paid media campaign, said Dion, who estimates she will need a minimum of $600,000.
“If she wants to get in the running, she’s going to want to have staff, paid staff, a consultant,” Dion said. “She’s going to want to go on the air at some point after Labor Day.”
Now that she’s won the Democratic primary with a commanding 68% of the vote, Dion said, Allen can probably expect an initial infusion of cash from people who want to back the winner.
“There will be sort of getting a second wind, riding a wave, tapping donors that have not yet given and some who have already given and will give more, and so maybe some momentum could be built there,” the UE political scientist said.
But persuading political action committees (PACs) that she can win in a Republican district will be a supreme challenge, Dion said.
“Political action committee directors can be pretty hard bitten,” he said. “They only have so much money to give. Most of them don’t give the maximum, which is only $5,000 anyway. So you’re looking at a couple of thousand, and they’re going to withhold that money unless they think you’ve got a realistic chance.”
Allen has vowed not to take money from “corporate PACs or foreign lobbying groups,” but she has accepted thousands in donations from local and regional political committees representing Democratic party organizations and candidates.
Allen said the donations that matter to her are the ones that come from individuals “who are fed up and people who feel like they’ve been ignored, and they’re ready to be engaged and involved.”
Asked what kinds of PACs she might be willing to accept campaign donations from, Allen said she is focusing on donations from individuals, who may give congressional candidates $3,500 for primary campaigns and $3,500 for general election campaigns.
Dion said his estimate that Allen will need at least $600,000 to run a congressional campaign in the 8th District doesn’t mean she has to compete toe-to-toe with Messmer.
“”You don’t necessarily need to have more than your opponent, although it would be nice,” he said. “You just have to have enough to get your message through and let people know who you are.”
GOP fears a ‘feeding frenzy’ if Allen does well
Moers raised the worrisome — for Republicans — specter that Allen could come close enough to winning that national Democrats ask her to run again in 2028. Only this time, he said, the party would make more money and national support available to her. Or any another promising Democrat that would emerge to run in the 8th District.
National Democrats haven’t made winning the 8th District a priority, thinking it is solid Republican territory. If Allen shows well and they are emboldened enough to start sniffing around the 8th District in 2028, Moers said, nothing good will come of it for Republicans.
“I don’t want that to trigger a feeding frenzy or for them to see that and go, ‘You know, that district’s a lot more vulnerable than we used to think it was’ — and really start making a push to try and flip our district,” the Republican chairman said.
It does happen. It happened with another Republican member of Congress, albeit one with a much higher profile than Messmer.
In 2022, conservative Republican firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado won her first bid for re-election by just a few hundred votes despite the fact that it was a solidly pro-Trump district that Boebert had won comfortably in 2020. The race wasn’t on either party’s radar screen when the year began.
The shocking outcome — the race between Boebert and Democrat Adam Frisch officially ended with a recount — lured Frisch into trying again in 2024 in a race that was going to attract far more money and attention from both major parties. Boebert ultimately short circuited the heavily anticipated rematch by moving to another congressional district in Colorado and winning that seat.
But UE political scientist Dion warned that Allen’s moment is now, not two years from now.
Now, when the national political climate is cutting Democrats’ way because voters are upset about gas prices, America is at war against Iran’s nuclear aspirations and there’s no presidential race to magnify Republican turnout in barn red Southwest Indiana.
Now, when Messmer is seeking re-election for the first time. The first time is the hardest, Dion said. People don’t know an incumbent as well as the incumbent may think. There hasn’t been time to dig in.
Former 8th District Congressman Larry Bucshon, a Republican who held the seat for 14 years before Messmer, never came as close to losing as he did his first time seeking re-election, when he defeated Crooks by a 53-43% margin.
The size of the electorate will be far different in presidential election year 2028, Dion said.
“The state will go for the Republican (presidential nominee) as it always does and so Republicans will come out of the woodwork in 2028, who may not come out of the woodwork this year,” he said. “I don’t want to call it a perfect storm, but you need an exciting Democrat and you need Republican alienation.”
And if a scandal or even a negative news cycle involving Messmer is layered on top of that, Dion said, “then anything can happen.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Here’s what the Messmer-Allen 8th District race could look like
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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