Indiana has a brand new political party after election day.
The Lincoln Party, championed by secretary of state candidate Greg Ballard, won nearly 4% of the vote, granting them ballot access for the next four years.
Party leadership says they will run high-quality candidates in races they feel can be competitive.
WFYI’s Benjamin Thorp sat down with Lincoln Party Chair Nathan Gotsch to talk about the party’s goals.
This interview has been edited for style and clarity.
Benjamin Thorp: So throughout the election cycle, a lot of people asked, "What will the Lincoln Party stand for?" And Ballard put out a platform that included a lot of, at least to me, kind of vague statements of principles that included things like fiscal stewardship and effective government.
Maybe it's worth taking just a moment to say, in your words, what do you think this party is going to stand for?
Nathan Gotsch: Yeah, so it's actually very clear. The Lincoln Party is about three things. One is fighting corruption, and I think you can make a pretty clear argument that Greg Ballard's entry into the Secretary of State's race is why Diego Morales didn't get renominated. So, in that respect, you know, one of one, check that box off for getting a corrupt Secretary of State out of that office.
The second is restoring accountability, and the fact that the majority of Hoosiers in the general election decided who our next Secretary of State is, and not 867 delegates to a state party convention, you know that's a win as well. Then the final thing is about listening to voters. Going forward now, we'll have the ability to run candidates in races anywhere across the state. Every single elected official is going to have to be more responsive, be listening to their voters more because there are no more safe seats. You know, that's what's so interesting about this model that we're building is the threat of competition.
We think it's going to be sort of a political invisible hand acting on all of our officials to remind them that their seats are earned. And that's better for every Hoosier, and it's better for our democracy.
Thorp: You know, we were talking, I think, on election night about the process that you might be unveiling here for selecting candidates moving forward. What can you tell us about what that will look like?
Gotsch: We want people to understand that the Lincoln Party is only going to get involved in races where we have the resources to field a high-quality candidate who has a real chance to win, and that's different than any other non-Republican or Democratic Party that we've seen. And I trust me, I did the research. I looked around all over the country, and no one's done this yet.
So, you know, there's a team of us who have been building sort of what we think that would look like, how we would determine which races we're going to get involved in. You know, I think one of the things that we've lost is just the trust in the parties to vet their candidates. You know, that used to be something that if I'm a Republican, I can feel good about the Republican candidate, or if I'm a Democrat, I can feel good about the Democratic candidate. That doesn't really exist anymore, and we think that's something that we need to bring back.
Thorp: I think my question to you is: Do you think there's room for more than one third party in this state, and how is this third party going to be something that gets more than, you know, 3 or 6% of the vote and becomes truly competitive with the major parties?
Gotsch: Look, I think that Indiana's rules on independent candidates go far beyond what they should. I think the restrictions that they placed on them are a way for the Republican and Democratic parties to crowd out competition, the competition that makes everybody better. And you know, we're hearing already from candidates, people who have, or let's just say, people who are interested in running in 2027 and beyond. And these are people who've held elected offices before, who come from the two major parties.
And what's so interesting is the people on the inside of those parties. They're the ones who know how badly the Lincoln Party is needed because they see up close inside just how broken their parties have become.
Thorp: What am I not asking you, Nathan, that you think is important to mention?
Gotsch: So I think the other thing that we're starting to see now is a real interest nationally in what we're doing. Just a couple of days before the election, George Will, a national political columnist for the Washington Post, talked about the Lincoln Party as potentially an earthquake that maybe people wouldn't hear or notice on Tuesday, but down the line could be something that really starts to change the nature of our politics.
But I hope people listening understand that the feeling that they have that things aren't quite working, and however they feel about this past Tuesday's results, we are the only thing that changed the system in Indiana. Having somebody from another party win an election, flip a seat, you know, those things are potentially one-offs. What we're doing is going to change Indiana politics going forward, and potentially American politics.
Thorp: Nathan, thank you so much for taking the time with us today.
Gotsch: Thanks, Ben.
Gotsch said the party is expecting to announce informational sessions across the state sometime in January.
Contact Government Reporter Benjamin Thorp at bthorp@wfyi.org
