- On Tuesday, Indiana is holding Republican and Democratic primaries in all nine of its House districts.
- There are competitive primaries in the state’s first district to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Peter Visclosky, and in the fifth congressional to replace retiring GOP Rep. Susan Brooks.
- Polls in Indiana close at 6 p.m. ET in most of the state, and at 6 p.m. CT and 7 p.m. Eastern Time in the counties located in the Central Time Zone.
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The stakes:
There are two main races to watch in Indiana today are the primaries in the state’s two open House of Representatives seats.
This year, Rep. Pete Visclosky is retiring from the first district located in the northwest corner of the state, a safely Democratic seat that Hillary Clinton carried by over 12 percentage points in 2016.
The main candidates vying for the nomination in the crowded 14-candidate Democratic primary are Frank Mrvan, a North Township Trustee who secured Visclosky’s endorsement, Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., and state Representative Mara Candelaria Reardon.
There’s also a competitive Republican primary in Indiana’s fifth district, a traditionally red seat in the Indianapolis suburbs and exurbs, to replace retiring GOP Rep. Susan Brooks.
Fifteen candidates are competing for the Republican nomination in the district, including State Senator Victoria Spartz, State Treasurer Kelly Mitchell, and former prosecutor Carl Rizzo.
Tensions have run high at points in the primary, with fellow GOP candidate and nurse Beth Henderson airing attack ads that some have criticized as xenophobic in targeting Spartz’s Ukrainian heritage.
Polls close at 6 p.m. ET in most of the state, and at 6 p.m. CT and 7 p.m. Eastern Time in the first and eighth congressional districts, where are located in the Central Time Zone.
More than 300,000 Hoosiers, an all-time record, are voting by mail this year after the state’s Election Commission waived the state’s previous rule requiring voters under 65 to have a documented excuse to request an absentee ballot, the Indianapolis Star reported.
The massive increase in voters casting ballots by mail will likely delay the timings of election results. Hamilton County, which accounts for the bulk of votes in the fifth district, for example, is not counting ballots at all until Wednesday.
