INDIANAPOLIS — In the race to fill Sen. Mike Braun’s seat, Republican Rep. Jim Banks, Democrat Valerie McCray and Libertarian Andrew Horning are sharing vastly different visions for the office if elected.
In an interview conducted earlier this month, Republican frontrunner Rep. Jim Banks (R-Indiana) said his top priority is to bring down inflation by reducing government spending.
”Indiana is more affected than any other state in the Midwest by inflation,” Rep. Banks said. “Right now, we have a $35 trillion national debt. Every 100 days, we grow that debt by another trillion dollars.”
In stark contrast, his Democratic opponent, Valerie McCray, has made her top priority turning back the clock on the Dobbs decision codifying abortion rights into federal law.
”I trust the women, I trust the doctors, and we’ll let them make those decisions,” McCray said. ”I don’t think we should get into limiting, and the reason why is because women, they’re smart, they know how to choose, they know between them and their doctors, they know what is right for them moving forward.”
While Rep. Banks said he’s confident Congress will not vote on an abortion ban under a second Trump term, he would support a bill to further restrict abortion access.
“If I ever get a chance to vote on a bill at the federal level to stop abortions of babies who feel pain and have a heartbeat, I will proudly vote for a bill to do that,” Rep. Banks said.
While Libertarian Andrew Horning is pro-life, he said he would not support a federal abortion ban.
”Our culture has become very anti-life, and that’s really the issue that we have to address,” Horning said. ”I’m pro-life in every aspect. I just don’t think this is something that the federal government has any business tackling, nor do I think that our federal government would be very good at it.”
If elected, Horning said he would work to root out political corruption—making the issue his top priority.
”I think we all know that the whole system has become very little more than a puppet show,” Horning said. ”When you consider how ‘off the rails’ our government has become, and how you can actually trace campaign donations to certain government policies very well, you can see why it’s really only Libertarians and third-party candidates who can even talk about corruption with a straight face.”
The candidates have also expressed extremely different healthcare plans. In order to tackle rising healthcare costs, Rep. Banks said he would work to break up hospital monopolies.
”Some studies show that that is the largest driver of higher healthcare costs are hospital monopolies,” Rep. Banks said. “When a large hospital monopoly exists in an area, then the prices inevitably go up.”
McCray said she would strengthen safety nets for the most vulnerable Hoosiers.
”Of course, I’m always for anything that gets healthcare to everyone,” McCray said. ”I’ve always been a medical care for all advocate, everyone knows that. In the meantime, we make sure we expand those supports, those medical supports for those who need it the most.”
Horning, who retired after 40 years in the healthcare industry, said government officials playing doctor needs to stop.
”Having been in product development in medical devices for a long time, I could tell you how much cheaper things would be if we didn’t have so many politicians practicing medicine,” Horning said. ”I think that everything we’ve done politically is wrong, and we have just about the worst socialized healthcare system in the world.”
According to the latest poll conducted by Emerson College and The Hill, Banks leads by 14 percentage points over McCray and 42 percentage points over Horning.
