Mayoral races will have state-wide effects

Tuesday’s municipal elections will decide only local races, but the effects of the races will ripple beyond their cities, party leaders say.\n“You look at these races as opportunities to build your organization,” said Kevin Ober, executive director of the Indiana Republican Party.\nHe noted Anderson Mayor Kevin Smith ended years of Democratic control of that office with his 2003 election.\n“We were able to leverage his victory in ‘03 and his leadership over the last four years to continue building a strong party organization,” Ober said.\nDemocrats, who captured previously Republican-held mayor’s offices in Evansville and Hammond in 2003, aim to build on that success.\n“We hope to expand on that this year,” state party Chairman Dan Parker said, noting Democrats now hold 65 mayoral offices across the state, including those of the state’s largest cities. “Our goal this year was to increase our majority.”\nOverall, voters in 119 Indiana cities will elect mayors, said spokeswoman Allison Fore of the Indiana Secretary of State’s office, which oversees elections.\nThe strength of Republican Greg Ballard’s campaign in Indianapolis has left the GOP hopeful it can add Indiana’s largest city to its current roster of Republican mayors in mid-size cities such as Muncie, Anderson, Kokomo, Carmel and Elkhart.\nAn Indianapolis Star/WTHR-TV poll of likely voters last month found Democratic incumbent Bart Peterson with a lead of 43 percent to 39 percent against Ballard, a result within the poll’s margin of error despite Peterson having raised about $4 million and Ballard less than $300,000 by mid-October.\nThe state party has given Ballard $30,000 in direct contributions and close to that in in-kind donations, Ober said. He said the state party’s total investment in local races across the state had not been tallied as of Monday.