Grace Panetta and Madison Hall
Aug 28, 2020, 3:28 PM
Republican Victoria Spartz and Democrat Christina Hale will vie in November to represent Indiana's 5th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. The district is currently represented by Republican Rep. Susan Brooks, who announced her plans to retire instead of running for a fifth term in June 2019.
The candidates
Hale is a former state representative for Indiana's 87th district, a title she held for four years. In 2016, she ran for lieutenant governor on the ticket with gubernatorial nominee John Gregg but lost in the general election.
To win the Democratic nomination for the 5th District, Hale beat out several opponents including Xerox executive Dee Thorton and scientist Jennifer Christie. Her campaign platform centers on lowering healthcare costs, addressing climate change, and strengthening the economy.
Spartz, a current state senator for Indiana's fifth district, is a founding member of the Hamilton County Tea Party and was the Hamilton County Republican Woman of the Year. She won a contested Republican primary of 15 candidates, where she faced xenophobic attack ads from fellow GOP candidate Beth Henderson regarding Spartz's Ukrainian ties.
On Aug.17, 2020, Spartz was endorsed by President Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., on Twitter.
The district
Indiana's 5th congressional district is located in the slightly north of the state's center, Indianapolis. The district includes parts of northern Indianapolis, the city's eastern and northern suburbs, as well as the cities of Carmel, Anderson, Marion, Noblesville, Fishers, and sections of Kokomo.
The district has traditionally leaned Republican, but fits the profile of many of the suburban congressional districts with relatively high household median incomes and levels of college education that Democrats have won back in the Trump era.
While Trump carried the district by nearly 12 points in 2016, former Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly narrowly carried the district by a margin of 0.5 percentage points in his 2018 election bid despite losing statewide.
Now, a spate of recent internal polls point to a competitive race in the district. An internal poll conducted for the conservative Club For Growth PAC by Republican firm WPA Intelligence showed Spartz leading Hale by seven points, 47% to 40%.
Since then, a Democratic internal poll conducted for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee showed Hale leading by six points, 50% to 44%, and Democratic nominee Joe Biden leading Trump by thirteen points, 55% to 42%. Another poll conducted by the Global Strategy Group for the Democratic House Majority PAC showed Hale leading Spartz by seven points, 47% to 40% with third-party Libertarian candidate Ken Tucker at 4% of the vote, and Biden leading Trump by eight points, 50% to 42%.
The money race
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Hale has narrowly outraised Spartz's in campaign contributions thus fur, recieving $1.47 million in donations compared to Spartz' $1.29 million, including $1 million she's lent to her own campaign. Hale, however, has $726,000 in cash on hand – over four times than that of Spartz with $170,000.
What some of the experts say
The race between Hale and Spartz is rated as a "toss-up" by The Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics and "leans Republican" by Inside Elections.