(EVANSVILLE, Ind.) — The candidates are making their final pitch for votes on the last day before
Election Day.
Governor Holcomb and Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch finished off their reelection campaign
with a Monday swing through Evansville, Jeffersonville and Columbus, joined by Indiana Senator Todd Young. Libertarian Donald Rainwater was in Columbus Saturday for one of seven final-weekend campaign stops. Democrat Woody Myers visited three Indianapolis early-voting sites on Saturday.
Democrats’ attorney general nominee Jonathan Weinzapfel made a final Monday morning campaign
swing through Saint Joseph County — he’ll visit polling places in his home city of Evansville on
Election Day. Victoria Spartz, Republicans’ nominee to replace retiring Congresswoman Susan
Brooks, says she’ll barnstorm polling places in the district’s eight counties on Tuesday. Christina
Hale, the Democratic nominee in that race, will be visiting polling places too, but says it’s more about
thanking people for their support and for making the effort to turn out to vote. She says by now,
people know who they’re voting for.
A record 1.7 million Hoosiers have already voted, nearly double the early votes cast four years ago and more than 60% of that year’s total turnout. Both Weinzapfel and Spartz say the main thing at this point is making sure supporters who haven’t already cast their ballots turn out on Election Day.
The coronavirus pandemic has drained much of the normal activity from the campaign trail. Spartz
and Hale say their campaign events have been smaller. And Weinzapfel, a former state
representative and Evansville mayor, says it’s dampened one of his favorite things about politics:
getting out and meeting people.
Hale says the Zoom calls which have replaced some campaign appearances allow the campaign to
cover more territory, but she and Weinzapfel both say it can’t substitute for making a personal
connection with voters. And both lament the difficulty of getting a feel for the room — when you make a joke, you can’t tell if anyone’s laughing because everyone’s on mute.