In the 2022 midterms, Indiana’s first congressional district looks like a prime target for a Republican flip. It is one of the most continuously blue congressional districts in the country — it hasn’t sent a Republican to Congress in 90 years — but it’s been trending red over the course of the past few election cycles. Its current representative, Frank Mrvan, carried 56 percent of the vote in 2020, as compared with his predecessor’s 65 percent in 2018. In November, the National Republican Congressional Committee added Mrvan to the list of vulnerable Democratic congressmen it aims to unseat in 2022.
So the Republican primary for the district — set to take place on May 3 — matters. And the district’s GOP primary voters should be skeptical of prominent Republican candidates who don’t seem to have figured out where they stand on important hot-button issues yet. Blaire Milo, the former mayor of a town in the district called LaPorte, is one of those Republicans. Milo, who filed for the primary in January, is one of the most viable candidates in the GOP primary — she’s the only Republican to have won an election to a major office in Northwest Indiana, and went on to serve as Secretary for Career Connections and Talent in Indiana governor Eric Holcomb’s office. But on Sunday, when asked about Holcomb’s recent veto of a ban on biological males in girls’ sports — a move that drew widespread rebuke from Republicans across the state — Milo couldn’t get her answer straight.
In an interview with a local Indiana television station, Milo was asked if she supported “the Indiana bill that calls for banning transgender girls in women’s sports.” She answered that she “believe[s] in a fair playing field,” and that “it’s crucial that we identify the mechanisms and the policies that ensure that fair playing field for all genders.” When pushed — “so do you disagree with the governor vetoing that bill?” — Milo dodged again:
I believe that we need to continue evaluating what the fair playing field is going to look like, so whether that decision needs to lie within a state policy or working with the governing organizations for high school sports, then we need to make sure that those policies are in place, so that again, that every student and all genders are getting a fair shot in competition.
This complete lack of an answer says a lot in and of itself. If Milo actually supported the bill, this would have been an easy slam-dunk: “Yes, I support the ban.” Other candidates in the race are capable of such clarity. Contrast Milo’s answer with how Jennifer Ruth-Green — another Republican candidate vying for the nomination in the district — has responded:
I am disappointed in @GovHolcomb for FAILING to protect our young girls.
I hope he does the RIGHT thing, reverses course, and signs the legislation that would BAN boys from competing in girls' sports.
— Jennifer-Ruth Green (@JenRuthGreen) March 24, 2022
See? It’s not that hard. It’s time for Republicans to learn that this is a winning issue. In fact, we have recent polling from the state of Indiana to prove it. As I wrote when the poll was published yesterday:
A new poll of Indiana voters from the American Principles Project (APP), a social-conservative advocacy group that has been at the forefront of many state-level legislative battles surrounding transgenderism and gender ideology, seems to confirm Banks’s assertion. The poll, which was conducted from March 28 to April 3 and focused primarily on transgender issues, found 42.1 percent “strongly disapproved” of Holcomb’s veto of the ban on biological males in girls’ sports, and 11 percent “somewhat disapproved.” By contrast, 11.3 percent “somewhat approved,” and 28.1 percent “strongly approved.” The survey sampled 1,022 likely voters in Indiana.
On the broader issue of transgender athletes in women’s sports, 54.4 percent of polled Indiana voters “strongly supported legislation that banned biologically male students that identify as transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports programs at Indiana K-12 public schools,” while 10.1 “somewhat supported,” 7.7 percent “somewhat opposed” and 19.5 “strongly opposed.” At the college level, 56.4 percent “strongly supported” a ban, while 10.3 percent “somewhat supported,” 8.4 percent “somewhat opposed,” and 17.2 percent “strongly opposed.”
It’s not just because Indiana’s a red state, either. As APP’s Terry Schilling notes: “Overall, Indiana voters support legislation protecting girls’ K-12 sports by a 37.8-point margin (64.5%-26.7%), including large majorities of Republican and independent voters. Even Democrats are split almost evenly on the issue, with 40.3% supporting a ban, and 44.4% opposing.” And independents disapproved of Holcomb’s veto by a full 16.1 points.
Time for Republicans to find some conviction. On both a political and moral level, the stakes are too high to mess this one up.