Indiana gubernatorial election, 1988

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Indiana gubernatorial election, 1988
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Nominee Evan Bayh John Mutz
Party Democratic Republican
Running mate Frank O'Bannon Stephen Goldsmith
Popular vote1,138,5741,000,207
Percentage53.2%46.8%
Governor before election

Robert D. Orr
Republican

Elected Governor

Evan Bayh
Democratic

The 1988 Indiana gubernatorial Election was held on November 8, 1988 in all 92 counties in the state of Indiana. Incumbent Governor Robert D. Orr, a Republican, was ineligible to run for a third consecutive term due to term limits set forth in the Indiana Constitution. In the general election, the Republican nominee, Lieutenant Governor John Mutz, was defeated by Democrat Indiana Secretary of State Evan Bayh by a margin of six percentage points. Bayh was the first Democrat to be elected Governor of Indiana since Roger D. Branigin's victory during the 1964 Democratic landslides twenty-four years previously.

Indiana State of the United States of America

Indiana is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Indiana is the 38th largest by area and the 17th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th U.S. state on December 11, 1816. Indiana borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north, Ohio to the east, Kentucky to the south and southeast, and Illinois to the west.

Robert D. Orr American politician

Robert Dunkerson Orr was an American political leader, diplomat, and the 45th Governor of Indiana from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party.

Republican Party (United States) Major political party in the United States

The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.

Contents

Primaries

Republican Party

John Mutz American politician

John Massie Mutz is an American business leader and politician who served as Lieutenant Governor of Indiana, Republican candidate for Governor and president of Lilly Endowment, one of America's largest family foundations.

Lieutenant Governor of Indiana position

The Lieutenant Governor of Indiana is a constitutional office in the US State of Indiana. Republican Suzanne Crouch, who assumed office 9 January 2017, is the incumbent. The office holder's constitutional roles are to serve as President of the Indiana Senate, become acting governor during the incapacity of the governor, and become governor should the incumbent governor resign, die in office, or be impeached and removed from office. Lieutenant governors have succeeded ten governors following their deaths or resignations. The lieutenant governor holds statutory positions, serving as the head of the state agricultural and rural affairs bureaus, and as the chairman of several state committees. The annual salary of the lieutenant governor is $88,000.

While the Republicans controlled the governor's mansion going into the 1988 elections, they were unable to nominate the incumbent governor, Robert D. Orr, due to term limits set in place by the Indiana Constitution. With Orr out of the running, the obvious choice to succeed him was his lieutenant governor, John Mutz. Mutz did not face a challenger for the nomination, and consequently rolled up 393,595 votes in the 1988 Republican primary election, a total that was nevertheless a little less than 100,000 votes fewer than his Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Evan Bayh, received in a three-way race for the Democratic nomination.

Indiana Republican primary election, 1988 [1]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Republican John Mutz 393, 595100.00

Democratic Primary

Evan Bayh American politician

Birch Evans Bayh III is an American lawyer, lobbyist, and politician of the Democratic Party who served as the junior United States Senator from Indiana from 1999 to 2011 and the 46th Governor of Indiana from 1989 to 1997.

Secretary of State of Indiana Constitutional office in Indiana, United States

The Secretary of State of Indiana is one of five constitutional officers originally designated in Indiana's State Constitution of 1816. Since 1851 it has been an elected position. The Secretary of State oversees four divisions, and is the third highest constitutional office of the state government. The Secretary serves as the State's chief election officer, enforces state securities regulations, regulates automobile dealerships in Indiana, and manages the state business services division. The current office holder is Connie Lawson, who was appointed by Gov. Mitch Daniels to serve out the term of former Secretary of State Charlie White, who was removed from office due to felony convictions. The annual salary of the Secretary of State of Indiana is $74,580.

Kokomo, Indiana City in Indiana, United States

Kokomo is a city in and the county seat of Howard County, Indiana, United States. Kokomo is Indiana's 13th-largest city. It is the principal city of the Kokomo, Indiana Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Howard County. Kokomo's population was 46,113 at the 2000 census, and 45,468 at the 2010 census. On January 1, 2012, Kokomo successfully annexed more than 7 square miles (18 km2) on the south and west sides of the city, including Alto and Indian Heights, increasing the city's population to nearly 57,000 people.

While the Republican primary was a pacific coronation of Mutz, the contest for the Democratic nomination was anything but. Three candidates initially contested the nomination: Evan Bayh, the incumbent Secretary of State of Indiana and son of former U.S. Senator Birch Bayh; Steve Daily, then-mayor of Kokomo; and Frank O'Bannon, a member of the Indiana State Senate. From the outset, Bayh was seen as the front runner in the race, and O'Bannon would eventually bow out to accept Bayh's offer to run for Lieutenant Governor, leaving Daily as the only challenger to the young politician who was being called "Indiana's Democratic boy wonder". [1] [2]

United States Senate Upper house of the United States Congress

The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which along with the United States House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the legislature of the United States. The Senate chamber is located in the north wing of the Capitol, in Washington, D.C.

Birch Bayh American lawyer and politician

Birch Evans Bayh Jr. was an American politician who served as U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1963 to 1981. He was first elected to office in 1954, when he won election to the Indiana House of Representatives; in 1958, he was elected Speaker, the youngest person to hold that office in the state's history. In 1962, he ran for the U.S. Senate, narrowly defeating incumbent Republican Homer E. Capehart. Shortly after entering the Senate, he became Chairman of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, and in that role authored two constitutional amendments: the twenty-fifth—which establishes procedures for an orderly transition of power in the case of the death, disability, or resignation of the President of the United States—and the twenty-sixth, which lowered the voting age to 18 throughout the United States. He is the only non-Founding Father to have authored two constitutional amendments. Bayh also led unsuccessful efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and eliminate the Electoral College.

Hoping to prevent the nomination of a candidate who might upend their dominance in Hoosier politics, state Republicans led by Governor Orr filed a legal challenge to Bayh's candidacy, claiming that he did not meet the residency requirements for candidates for the state's highest office and demanding that he be removed from the ballot. The attempt backfired: rather than neutralizing Bayh, the legal challenge actually boosted his standing in the race. On April 28, the Supreme Court of Indiana found that Bayh did, in fact, meet all residency requirements set forth in the state's Constitution, ending any threat to the candidate's ballot access. Simultaneously, the challenge allowed Bayh to cast himself as the underdog and a target of the Republican political machine, calling the challenge a "rather sad commentary" on Republican confidence in Mutz. [2] [3]

Supreme Court of Indiana the highest court in the U.S. state of Indiana

The Supreme Court of Indiana, established by Article 7 of the Indiana Constitution, is the highest judicial authority in the state of Indiana. Located in Indianapolis, the Court's chambers are in the north wing of the Indiana Statehouse.

Bayh won the Democratic nomination with 493,198 votes, or 83.1%

Indiana Democratic primary election, 1988 [1]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic Evan Bayh 493,19883.1
Democratic Steve Daily66,24211.1
Democratic Frank O'Bannon 34,3605.8

General Election

Throughout the fall campaign, Mutz attempted to capitalize on Bayh's youth by casting him as inexperienced and unfit to lead Indiana from the governor's mansion. Accusing Bayh of being more interested in a potential Senate run than in being governor, Mutz drew a distinction between his own extensive record in state government and Bayh's relatively recent arrival on the political stage. Comparing Bayh to an unqualified job applicant, Mutz wondered aloud if Hoosiers would "employ someone who has lived in this state only a handful of years, by anybody`s measure, and who has only a year's experience in that system?" Bayh returned fire by attacking Mutz as the candidate of the political machine. Despite the attacks, the two candidate's platforms showed remarkable similarity. Both Bayh and Mutz were committed to education reform, and both pledged to make government more efficient and to promote economic growth. Speaking to the New York Times, Bayh's campaign manager acknowledged that the Democrat was running on a relatively conservative platform. "I'd like to say that Hoosiers are an independent lot", he said. [2] [4]

On election night, Bayh defeated Mutz by a comfortable margin, winning 53% of the vote to Mutz's 47%. Bayh's victory was remarkable for a number of reasons. First, a Democrat had not been elected governor of Indiana since 1964, a year that had seen a landslide for Democrats up and down the ballot. Second, he was the youngest governor in the nation at the time of his election, his 33rd birthday taking place nearly two months after election day. Third, Indiana was carried by the Republican ticket (which featured Indiana Senator Dan Quayle as the vice presidential nominee) in the 1988 Presidential Election, and elections for the Indiana General Assembly resulted in a chamber that was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Bayh's victory in what was otherwise a good year for Indiana Republicans stood testament to his bipartisan appeal, which would allow him to be re-elected governor in 1992 and then to serve two terms in the U.S. Senate.

Results

Indiana gubernatorial election, 1988 [5]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic Evan Bayh 1,138,57453.2
Republican John Mutz 1,002,20746.8

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References

  1. 1 2 3 http://www.harnesstracks.com/docdatabase/alice/racino/IND0076.pdf
  2. 1 2 3 Michael Tackett (February 26, 1988). "Indiana Governor Battle Sizzles". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
  3. ↑ "State Election Bd. v. Bayh :: 1988 :: Indiana Supreme Court Decisions :: Indiana Case Law :: US Case Law :: US Law :: Justia". Law.justia.com. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
  4. ↑ Richard L. Berke (November 9, 1988). "The 1988 Elections; Indiana Elects Bayh's Son Governor; Moore Is Ousted by West Virginians". The New York Times. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
  5. ↑ "Ourcampaigns.com". Ourcampaigns.com. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
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