... In interviews across the state, Hoosier voters described being inundated with television and digital advertising and daily mailers from candidates and the outside groups supporting them. The numbers back that up.
The political advertising tracking firm AdImpact said that $13.4 million was spent on advertising in this year’s Indiana state Senate primaries. For comparison: In the 2024 election cycle, about $280,000 was spent on state Senate primary ads in Indiana — in all races combined.
The bulk of that spending came from a group linked to US Sen. Jim Banks, a close Trump ally. Club for Growth led the direct mail effort for the pro-Trump forces, Indiana Republicans said, and Turning Point USA supplied ground troops for door-to-door get-out-the-vote efforts as the group sought to carry out one of the last political stances taken by its late co-founder Charlie Kirk, who was killed weeks after urging Indiana Republican lawmakers to redistrict.
The incumbents and their supporters bemoaned outside forces’ role in the Indiana primary. Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said the primary contests were “really driven from outside the state of Indiana, mostly in Washington, DC, and the money’s coming from outside Indiana as well.”
But the flood of advertising spending — more than 47 times more than was spent on state Senate primaries just two years earlier — proved too much for most incumbents to overcome. ...
