UPDATE: 7:45 p.m.
The Associated Press has called the Indiana Republican primary for Donald Trump, potentially bringing him closer to the required delegate count for the automatic Republican nomination for President.
After trailing early Tuesday, Bernie Sanders has pulled slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton in the Indiana Democratic primary.
Tuesday, May 3 is the Indiana primary election. This election is for political parties to choose their respective nominees for each position that will be up for vote in the general election in November.
Indiana has an open primary, meaning voters can choose which political party ballot they would like to vote on when they enter their polling place. Voters can only vote on one political party ballot, so no one can vote for both Democratic and Republican nominees.
In Monroe County, voters will also vote for the delegates that will represent their votes at the state and national party conventions.
The current list of nominees, former positions and basic platforms for each candidate are for ballots that will be cast in Bloomington. You are allowed to take this information into the voting booth with you to assist you in making decisions.
To find your polling place go to: https://indianavoters.in.gov/PublicSite/PublicMain.aspx
REPUBLICAN BALLOT
Presidency
Ted Cruz, running with businesswoman Carly Fiorina
U.S. Senator from Texas
Platform: Believes in waiting for the next president to be elected before someone should be appointed to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat; believes in religious freedom; promotes school choice; is against gun reform; wants more security at our national borders; promotes military involvement in the Middle East and fighting against the Islamic State group.
John Kasich
Governor of Ohio
Platform: Wants to give educational responsibility entirely to the state; opposes abortion and public funding for Planned Parenthood; wants to invest in mental health and addiction services; opposes gun regulations; supports repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Donald Trump
Billionaire business owner
Platform: Wants to build a wall at the southern border with Mexico to curb immigration; wants to raise taxes on products coming from American companies that moved overseas; wants to remove common core education standards; opposes gun regulation.
U.S. Senator
Marlin Stutzman
U.S. Representative of Indiana’s 3rd District
Platform: Promotes a balanced national budget; wants to overhaul the Affordable Care Act; believes in repealing certain government programs in order to create replacements with public and private sector partnerships; promotes school choice; opposes abortion.
Todd Young
U.S. Representative of Indiana’s 9th District
Platform: Wants to decrease EPA regulations; wants to give educational responsibility to the states and local governments; wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act; supports lowering taxes; is anti-abortion.
U.S. House, Indiana’s 9th Congressional District
Robert Hall
Manufacturing executive and consultant
Platform: Wants to change the tax system, including eliminating filing for individual tax returns; believes in bringing jobs back from companies that have moved overseas; wants to cut government spending.
Trey Hollingsworth
Millionaire businessman from Tennessee
Platform: Supports term limits for members of Congress; opposes expanding government; is against career political work; believes the government should have Christian principles to guide decisions.
Erin Houchin
Senator in the Indiana General Assembly
Platform: Is anti-abortion; promotes funding for manufacturing jobs; wants to increase Internet accessibility; supports law enforcement funding for prosecuting individuals engaged in human trafficking.
Brent Waltz
Senator in the Indiana General Assembly
Platform: Opposes gun regulations; wants tax reform that includes eliminating estate taxes, reducing payroll tax and halting increases in capital gains and dividend taxes; is anti-abortion; wants to add security to the southern border with Mexico; wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Greg Zoeller
Attorney general for the state of Indiana
Platform: Has focused on prescription drug abuse; supports school resource officers; opposes same-sex marriage.
Indiana Governor
Mike Pence
Governor (incumbent)
Platform: Believes in religious freedom; promotes school choice and voucher programs; is against abortion; promotes tax cuts.
Indiana House District 46
Bob Heaton
Majority whip and representative in the Indiana General Assembly
Platform: Supports abortion regulation; supports gun rights.
Indiana House District 60
Peggy Mayfield
Representative in the Indiana General Assembly
Platform: Supports reduced government spending; is anti-abortion; supports gun ownership and freedoms; supports small businesses and job growth.
Indiana House District 62
Jeff Ellington
Representative in the Indiana General Assembly.
Platform: Supports abortion regulations; promotes job growth; supports gun rights.
Sawyer Sparks
Business owner, former member of the Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce
Platform: Supports changes in funding to public education; promotes agricultural innovation and job growth.
Monroe County Commissioner District 2
Nelson Shaffer
Geologist
Platform: Supports environmental protection; wants to reduce county debt by budgeting and lowering taxes.
Monroe County Commissioner District 3
Hal Turner
Former district office manager for Rep. Todd Young
Platform: Wants to bring change to the commission by bringing in new members.
Paul White Sr.
Former Monroe County Council member, rural transit driver
Platform: Believes in a politically diverse county commission.
Monroe County Treasurer
Ann Collins
Real estate investor
Platform: Promotes accountability to the treasurer’s office; wants to balance the county budget as soon as possible.
Monroe County Coroner
Eric S. Powell
Monroe County Surveyor
Russell J. Stanger
DEMOCRATIC BALLOT
Presidency
Hillary Clinton
Former Secretary of State and U.S. Senator from New York. Wife of former president Bill Clinton.
Platform: Has a college tuition payment plan for students to work 10 hours a week and make family contributions while state governments fund the rest through grants given by the federal government; supports the Affordable Care Act; wants to change the pathway to citizenship for immigrants; promotes an increase in the minimum wage; wants to regulate Wall Street by imposing risk fees on large banks and extending the statute of limitations on prosecuting fraud crimes; promotes paid family leave and reproductive rights.
Bernie Sanders
Senator from Vermont, former U.S. Representative and mayor. He formerly identified as a political independent.
Platform: Wants to break up large banks; supports free tuition for public universities; believes in overturning the Citizens United case that made unlimited corporate donations to support political campaigns legal; wants to raise the minimum wage; supports reproductive rights and paid leave; supports universal health care; promotes a tax on the wealthiest Americans and stricter regulations on moving American money in overseas accounts; wants to create jobs fixing America’s infrastructure.
U.S. Senator
Baron Hill
Former U.S. Representative for Indiana’s 9th district.
Platform: Has mostly campaigned on economic and job opportunity; opposes religious freedom legislation.
U.S. House, Indiana’s 9th Congressional District
Robert Kern
Platform: Promotes clean energy and opposes the Keystone pipeline or any similar project; believes in giving incentives to small businesses and other job growth; is pro-life; believes public undergraduate education should be tuition free and that graduate schools should have subsidized loans.
James McClure Jr.
IT analyst at Humana, U.S. Air Force and Navy veteran
Platform: Believes in restrictions for borrowing money from other nations; supports small business development.
Bill Thomas
Pastor, author
Platform: Supports women’s rights, gun rights, religious freedom legislation, affordable healthcare and reducing foreign aid.
Shelli Yoder
Monroe County Council member and lecturer at the IU Kelley School of Business
Platform: Believes a“responsible government and a strong private sector” can change America; supports changing wages and promoting small business development.
Indiana Governor
John Gregg
Former representative in the Indiana General Assembly, former president of Vincennes University.
Platform: Believes in making government more transparent by requiring agencies to fulfill public records requests within 10 days and creating a public transparency commission; supports equal pay and work safety for women; wants to help create vocational education programs; promotes investment in infrastructure rebuilding plans.
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Glenda Ritz
Incumbent; former teacher and librarian
Platform: Believes in relieving some consequences from schools that see a drop in ISTEP scores; created an outreach division in districts around the state to help schools improve.
Indiana House District 46
Bill Breeden
Former pastor, including of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Bloomington.
Platform: Supports expanding protections to LGBT citizens; opposes gerrymandering; supports background checks for gun purchases; believes in expanding Medicare for all citizens; opposes religious freedom legislation; believes it is a woman’s choice whether or not she has an abortion.
Indiana House District 60
Penny Githens
Project manager for the IU School of Education, former researcher at Yale University and Vanderbilt University.
Platform: Believes in giving local schools more control over course content; supports infrastructure rebuild; opposes religious freedom legislation and supports expanding rights legislatively; supports raising the minimum wage.
Indiana House District 61
Matt Pierce
Representative to the Indiana General Assembly, former chief of staff to Rep. Baron Hill, former Bloomington City Council member.
Platform: Has written legislation designating wild areas to protect; supports a Constitutional amendment saying that giving money is not considered speech; supports criminal justice reform such as adding rehabilitation for opioid and alcohol users who are serving time for a crime.
Indiana House District 62
Steve Lindsey
Small business owner, former Greene County commissioner.
Platform: Considers himself pro-life; supports the right to bear arms; promotes the state coal industry.
Indiana Senate District 40
Tom Pappas
Platform: Promotes raising the minimum wage gradually to $15; wants to ensure clean drinking water; wants to receive funding to redesign local low income housing; supports decreasing standardized testing; believes in expanding LGBT protections.
Mark Stoops
State senator
Platform: Has written legislation removing asset limits for food stamp eligibility, helping disabled people receive employment, ranked choice voting and helping former drug convicts to receive food stamp assistance after a certain length of time.
Monroe County Commissioner District 2
Julie Thomas
Monroe County Commissioner
Platform: Supports expand the county convention center; wants to ensure businesses are a part of the county Urbanizing Area plan.
Monroe County Commissioner District 3
Amanda Barge
Psychological counselor, member of the Monroe County Women’s Commission
Platform: Supports social services such as the syringe exchange program; believes in maintaining historic buildings; supports protecting the environment and water supply.
John Whikehart
Former Ivy Tech-Bloomington Chancellor former chief of staff for Sen. Frank O’Bannon.
Platform: Wants to reduce child poverty, clean drinking water and job creation in the county.
Rick Dietz
Former Monroe County Council member and Monroe County Democratic Party chairman.
Platform: Wants to raise the minimum wage; supports ensuring clean water for citizens; wants to improve food security.
Monroe County Auditor
Terri Porter
Former Department of Housing and Urban Development Administrator.
Platform: Wants to have data available to county officials; wants to be more collaborative with the rest of county government.
Kevin Easton
Works for the Indiana Procurement Technical Assistance Center
Platform: Supports government transparency by making sure citizens have access to local government finance data; wants to communicate regularly with other areas of local government and county residents.
Catherine Smith
Monroe County Treasurer
Platform: Wants to make sure accounting procedures are easier for people to understand by changing documents to simpler language; wants to update local government and citizens with a self-assessment of the auditor’s office.
Monroe County Treasurer
Jessica McClellan
Monroe County Deputy Assessor
Platform: Wants to ensure transparency and be accessible; wants fair tax collection; wants to collaborate with other areas of local government.
Hans Huffman
Works in the Treasurer’s office
Platform: Wants to ensure communication between taxpayers and other areas of local government; wants to create new investment strategies.
Monroe County Coroner
Joani Shields
Monroe County Surveyor
Kevin Enright
Surveyor
Platform: Wants to keep integrating new technologies to the surveying process; wants to pass a storm water plan to upkeep county water projects.
Monroe County Council At-Large (elect three)
Geoff McKim
Council member
Platform: Wants to invest in rebuilding county infrastructure; wants to help create a different funding system for 911; wants more investment in public transit systems; wants to mitigate potential damages by the I-69 expansion.
Lee Jones
Council member
Platform: Believes in the expansion of the convention center; in favor of a local option income tax and other means of increasing county revenue; wants a new community corrections center.
Cheryl Munson
Council member
Platform: Wants to help preserve natural resources; wants to mitigate possible damages done by the I-69 expansion; wants to maintain a balanced budget.
Monroe County Circuit Court Judge, Seat 1
Darcie Fawcett
Holly Harvey
Alphonso Manns
Michael Flory
Circuit Court Judge, Seat 4
Hon. Mary Ellen Diekhoff
Circuit Court Judge, Seat 7
