The nomination continues a year of political twists for Holcomb, who had been running for retiring Republican Dan Coats’ U-S Senate seat before abruptly withdrawing in February to become Pence’s running mate, after Lieutenant Governor Sue Ellspermann resigned to become president of Ivy Tech.
Advertisement
The Indiana Republican Central Committee will decide Tuesday who will replace Gov. Mike Pence on the ballot in November.
Helmke’s comments came not long after the 22-member Indiana Republican state committee announced it had decided Holcomb was the party’s best option for retaining the governor’s office. He says he’ll draw a contrast between those years and Democratic nominee John Gregg’s six years as House speaker, declaring IN “cannot slip and drift and go backwards to those days of debt, and delayed payments to schools, or unfunding critical and important infrastructure projects”.
“We can not allow our state to slip back”, Holcomb said.
“We will continue to balance budgets, we will continue to right-size our tax code, we will continue to invest in education, in infrastructure and work every day to make in the best place to live, work, play and stay”, Holcomb said.
Holcomb, a 48-year-old former state Republican chairman who has never been elected to office, was only recently appointed lieutenant governor after Pence’s prior running mate stepped down in March.
U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks, R-IN, was one of the candiates for the Republican gubernatorial position.
The GOP committee will be choosing from Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb, Congresswoman Susan Brooks, Congressman Todd Rokia and State Senator Jim Tomes. Brooks announced she is returning to her U.S. House race. Holcomb later clarified that he had not meant to suggest that other Republicans wouldn’t get Pence’s support if they were chosen.
Pence will be campaigning in the deepest Republican part of Wisconsin, an area that Trump must do well in if he hopes to win Wisconsin.
But now some elections experts are questioning how much of Pence’s campaign largess can be transferred to Holcomb under federal rules that apply to Pence now that he is running for federal office.
In any case, Brooks and Rokita insisted they are united behind Holcomb’s candidacy for governor.
Either way, Holcomb will have to quickly ramp up a statewide campaign to build his name identification and spread an agenda that is likely to hew closely to Pence’s positions.
And according to a member of the committee, who asked not to be identified, the race is down to a toss-up between Brooks, the early frontrunner, and Holcomb, who received a huge boost on Friday thanks to an endorsement from Pence himself. “So I’ll be able to enjoy that and any other candidate will have to speak for themselves, but I know the discussions that I have had with the governor”, Holcomb said. For too many Hoosier families, wages aren’t keeping up and the good paying jobs we are losing aren’t being replaced. “I want to serve as governor and Eric Holcomb wants to be governor – and there’s a big difference there”. He was the 2008 campaign manager and top aide for former Gov. Mitch Daniels, who made him the state Republican Party chairman in 2011.
He has previously said Pence “struck the right tone” on LGBT rights and that such issues as infrastructure improvements, education and job creation should have the state’s focus.
“We’ve got work to do and a short time to get there”, Holcomb said after being chosen as the new gubernatorial candidate.
Advertisement
“We just need to call people to make sure that all our volunteers are aware the event is going on so they can go to that event and also to get all our interns and volunteers to help out with the event”, Alexandra Kurpiel said.
