GOP Candidate Removed from Republican Primary Ballot

It would appear that Democrats were trying to put an operative in the primary election for the Indiana Senate seat that is now up for grabs.

The seat is being vacated by Senator Mike Braun (R-IN), who plans on running for governor.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) had already announced that he would run for the seat, and he had one possible challenger in John Rust, who was just kicked off the ballot.

Spies!

Rust was removed from the ballot after the Indiana Election Commission ruled that he had not met the two-primary voting requirement for the election.

Rust has long been voting Democrat, so he was fighting the qualifier so that he could run for office as a Republican.

I think we can all smell the rat in the room here, as Democrats have been pretty open about putting Democrat operatives on the ballot in GOP primary races to sabotage the Republican Party.

Indiana election laws state that in order to run in a primary election, that candidate must have voted in the last two primary races for that party.

According to voting records, Rust voted in Democrat primary races in 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012.

In 1996 and 2016, he voted in Republican primary races.

Rust contends that he missed the 2020 primary race because of COVID, and he further stated that many of the Republicans on the ballot in that election were running unopposed.

Rust won the initial case in Marion Superior Court, but the ruling was stayed by the Indiana Supreme Court.

This opened his candidacy up to challenges, and six were filed against him.

After the ruling came down, Rust went ballistic on X, posting, “Today proved that the political insiders are continuing to rig our election.

“It’s this kind of disregard for Hoosiers that inspired me to run for the U.S. Senate in the first place.

“We will be appealing this all the way up to the United States Supreme Court if necessary.”

So, at this point, it would appear that Banks is destined to take a seat in the Senate in 2025, as Braun had won the race rather easily, 50.9-45, but that was also a mid-term election, whereas this election will be run with the presidential election, which will create more voter turnout.

In polling, Democrat favorite Valerie Lin McCray is trailing Banks 31-22, but that was taken back in October by Emerson College.

With this ballot issue now settled, we will surely see more polling in the near future.

Indiana’s primary race for the Senate will take place on May 7.