By ISABELLA VOLMERT
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Republicans rejected Sen. Mike Braun’s choice for lieutenant governor on Saturday, instead nominating a podcasting pastor with far-right views to be his running mate.
Braun, who is leaving the Senate, endorsed state Rep. Julie McGuire for his running mate when he became the GOP nominee for governor. Indiana delegates usually back the nominee’s chosen running mate without a challenge.
But during Saturday’s state Republican Party convention, party delegates instead chose pastor Micah Beckwith, who promotes uncompromising positions on abortion, gender and sexuality and cohosts his “Jesus, Sex and Politics” podcast. The ultra-conservative pastor of Life Church in Noblesville lobbied delegates for a year to win the nomination at the convention.
Beckwith received the votes of 891 delegates, while McGuire got 828 votes, Indiana Republican Party spokesperson Griffin Reid said.
Braun had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump and campaigned largely on national issues such as immigration. Trump made a surprise endorsement Thursday night for McGuire ahead of the convention, indicating Beckwith’s campaign had some teeth.
“There’s no doubt about this, I’m in charge, and Micah is going to be someone that works with me. If he doesn’t, I think that means it will probably not be as fruitful,” Braun said after Beckwith’s victory.
Braun, who is leaving the U.S. Senate, had announced McGuire as his choice in May, a day after winning the primary election with about 40% of the votes. Trump won Indiana in the 2020 election by 16 points.
Braun will now run with Beckwith against Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jennifer McCormick, a former state education chief, and Libertarian nominee Donald Rainwater. Democrats haven’t won a statewide office in Indiana since 2012.
The Indiana Republican Party said in a statement that with Beckwith’s nomination as Braun’s running mate and state Attorney General Todd Rokita’s nomination Saturday for a second term in that post, “the statewide Republican ticket is set and ready to win in November!”
Beckwith, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress from central Indiana in 2020, actively campaigned for lieutenant governor for a year, courting delegates months ahead of the convention. He is known for his far-right stances on gender, sexuality and abortion. He cast himself as a political outsider who would keep the governor’s office in check, limit property taxes and oppose school efforts to support the LGBTQ+ community.
During a November 2022 God > Gov forum at Living Stones Church in Crown Point, Beckwith argued that the time is now to return the United States to its founding “Judeo-Christian values.”
“Our job is to take it back into our schools, into our communities, our government, into public squares,” he said.
Beckwith served on the Hamilton East Public Library board between 2022 and 2024, when he and a conservative majority removed 2,000 books from the children and young adult sections that they deemed inappropriate. After community outcry and more than $20,000 spent crafting the policy, the board voted to reverse it in late 2023.
Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Mike Schmuhl said in a statement that Beckwith’s nomination “shows how out-of-the-mainstream extremism has hijacked the current Indiana GOP.”
“Beckwith will bring the worst of the culture wars to the lieutenant governor’s office, which is usually tasked with increasing tourism and supporting agriculture. He is dangerous for business, dangerous for women, dangerous for families, and dangerous for Indiana’s future,” Schmuhl added.
McGuire, from Indianapolis, was a policy analyst for Senate Republicans until 2022, when she unseated a representative who had angered other Republicans in part by repeatedly pushing a complete ban on abortion. Indiana’s near-total ban allows exceptions in rare and limited circumstances.
Braun said he selected McGuire for her strongly conservative legislative and policy record despite her short time in office.
Indiana’s lieutenant governor runs four state agencies, ceremoniously presides over the Senate and would break tie votes there, if that would ever happen in a chamber where the GOP enjoys a supermajority.
Delegates sometimes buck their leaders’ choices. In 2022, they defied Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s backing of the secretary of state Holli Sullivan, who had been selected to fill out the remainder of Connie Lawson’s term in 2021, and instead elected Diego Morales, who went on to win the general election.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.
