Democrats swept key races in Northwest Indiana on Tuesday, securing major wins for U.S. House and state legislature seats critical to Gary and the surrounding areas.
Rep. Vernon Smith held on to his Indiana House District 14 seat, defeating Republican Ivan Ursery II handily, securing 72% of the vote. Smith, who was originally elected to the seat in 1990, is one of the longest serving members of the House.
“I am humbled that the citizens of the 14th House District considered my past service worthy and extended me two additional years to serve them,” Smith told Capital B Gary.
“I do not take their support lightly. I will represent them, whatever the majority of the people in my district want, that’s the way I will vote.”
Asked about his expectations of the upcoming legislative session, Smith acknowledged what may be an uphill battle.
“I have trepidations because I know that with [Republicans] controlling both houses and the governor’s office again next year, we’ll get more of the same legislation, which is not good for the average citizen in the state of Indiana. I expect them to continue to try to destroy public education because you’re shifting all that money to funding for private schools and charter schools.”
With 78% of the vote counted, state Rep. Earl Harris Jr. retained his House District 2 seat with the largest win of all the races, defeating his Republican opponent, Ben Ruiz, with more than 80% of the vote.
Forecasting the 2025 legislative session, Harris spoke to the health-focused agenda of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus that he chairs but also as a focus of the legislature as a whole.
“I think it’s going to be the focus of the session in general, because we have some health care issues to deal with and make sure that people are taken care of,” Harris said. “Whether it has to do with in-home care, at-home care, insurance, hospital costs, and cost of medication. There’s a lot of things on the table. So, I expect us as a House and a Senate, not just the IBLC, to spend a lot of time discussing this.”
Mark Spencer, a relative political newcomer, won the race for Indiana’s District 3 Senate seat comfortably over Republican challenger Will Miller with 73% of the vote. Spencer garnered over 33,000 votes in the race and will vacate his seat on the Gary Common Council at the beginning of the year.
The win returns the Senate seat to Gary Democrats, who have held it since the 1970s under leaders like the late Earline Rogers, former Mayor Rudy Clay, and current Mayor Eddie Melton—a history not lost on Spencer.
“The lineage is quite great in terms of the shoulders I stand on,” Spencer said.
“The likes of Earline Rodgers, who was just a great educator. I’ve known her since my youth, and she’s been a mentor and leader to me as well.”
Faced with a Republican supermajority in both houses of the legislature, Spencer looks to lean on diplomacy.
“Reaching across the aisle is essential if we’re going to move the needle forward and make any progress at all,” he said.
“Negotiation is important. And my position as an educator, from a foundation of public education, my passion, is to preserve that model and to enhance it, and it’s imperative that we work together.”
Democratic incumbent state Rep. Ragen Hatcher won reelection to the House District 3 seat over Republican Leslie Dallner from Hobart by more than 25 percentage points. The Associated Press called the race Tuesday evening. Hatcher now heads into her fourth term in the state legislature.
In the race for Indiana’s 1st District U.S. House seat, Democratic incumbent Frank Mrvan defeated Republican challenger Randy Niemeyer, extending Democrats’ hold on the seat to more than 20 years.
While he enjoyed a sizable 12-point win in Lake County, Mrvan saw much slimmer margins in the two other counties that make up his district. In Porter County, Niemeyer finished 3 points ahead of Mrvan, while losing LaPorte County by less than 2 percentage points.
Mrvan will be heading back to Washington for his third term.
